Speaker Mike Johnson bet it all on “one big, beautiful bill.” With a heavy assist from President Donald Trump in the final hours, he delivered.
Johnson had to battle for months with factions of his own conference, and with the Senate, at multiple key junctures.
Davidson was one of two House Republicans who voted “no” Thursday, and Garbarino missed the vote.
Inside the meeting, the president took on a kind of Rodney Dangerfield persona, House Republicans said — telling barbed jokes at lawmakers’ expense.
Trump’s tongue lashings and Johnson’s hardball approach to muscling the bill through this week rattled some even long-time GOP lawmakers.
It all hinged on “one big, beautiful bill,” according to Speaker Mike Johnson. He succeeded, with President Donald Trump providing crucial support in the closing hours.
The Louisiana Republican’s series of strategic choices, primarily that it would be easier to pass ambitious legislation with his small governing majority if he packaged a huge package of tax cuts with other various GOP priorities, were at least temporarily validated by the bill’s passage in the House early Thursday morning.
Johnson had to fight for months against the Senate and factions within his own conference at several crucial points. But following a final round of negotiations and an uncommon overnight session on the House floor, he pushed through and brought a number of Trump’s campaign pledges closer to the president’s desk.
Shortly after the vote, Johnson said to reporters, “There were a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart.” He also mentioned that he went to the House chapel to pray on it.
Johnson basically fought fires for months. He and other GOP leaders had to handle one controversy after another as different groups in the House fought over trillions in tax cuts and politically explosive cuts to social safety-net spending.
Johnson may not have been able to put out all of the fires, but he prevented them from spreading into a fire that even Trump was unable to put out. After the Senate returns the megabill’s revisions later this year, he’ll most likely have to do it again.
Given that different groups of holdouts refused to join, the prospects for the legislation appeared dire during the past week.
However, on Wednesday evening, Rep. Conservative hardliner Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) implied that the bill might “have to fail” on the floor before lawmakers would recognize it needed revision. Moderate Rep. Garbarino Andrew (R-N. Yep. declared his displeasure with the modifications the conservatives had obtained to swiftly abolish the clean-energy tax credits he had been fighting to protect.
In the end, neither voted in favor of the bill. Garbarino did not vote, and Davidson was one of two Republicans in the House who voted “no” on Thursday.
However, Johnson had spent the week removing nearly every other member, alternating between holdout groups in a methodical manner and patiently resolving a seemingly never-ending list of problems.
Johnson was criticized by the opposing side of the conference in a closed-door meeting on Monday night after he hesitantly approved some important demands from fiscal hawks who had postponed a crucial Budget Committee vote.
Johnson was criticized by a number of Republicans in the Main Street Caucus for seemingly ruling out politically explosive Medicaid cuts, such as reducing the federal share of funding to states, or FMAP.
The speaker was pressured by some of the centrist Republicans in the room to publicly remove the proposal from consideration this time around and warn the hard right not to pursue it any further.
Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a former Trump aide, expressed his personal displeasure with Johnson’s handling of the entire megabill process.
The speaker and his team’s strategies did, in fact, irritate a lot of Republicans. They thought that he had foolishly put off resolving the most important disputes until the very last minute and had deceitfully promised certain vulnerable Republicans that the Senate would step in and thwart some of the bill’s most objectionable clauses.
As participants spoke, Johnson took notes. He told reporters, “FMAP has not been on the table — it’s been off the table for quite some time,” as he made his way back to his office a short while later. “”.
Another fire had been put out by him. However, Johnson needed to call in backup.
To express his wishes, Trump made a rare trip to the dim, dimly lit Capitol basement the following morning. It was unclear whether he would put a stop to the arguments or make them worse.
Days prior to the visit, the hard-liner rebellion had blocked the bill in the Budget Committee vote due to fears that the megabill would increase the national debt by trillions of dollars.
Trump dismissed the hard-liners’ deeply held beliefs, seemingly in an attempt to inflame tensions before he even entered the meeting.
When asked about some of the hard-right concerns, he and Johnson told reporters, “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk — there’s nobody like me.”.
The president, according to House Republicans, adopted a Rodney Dangerfield persona during the meeting, making crude jokes about lawmakers.
He attacked the “SALT Republicans” and fiscal conservatives who were advocating for the extension of a significant tax cut, naming “grandstanders” who attempted to obstruct his “one big, beautiful bill.”. “.”.
One perplexed House Republican, who was given the same anonymity as others to speak openly about private meetings and conversations, said, “He strongly insulted a number of people.”.
Even longtime GOP lawmakers were shaken by Trump’s outbursts and Johnson’s tough-minded strategy to get the bill passed this week. There was obviously no space for disagreement.
Regarding the our-way-or-the-highway strategy, one House Republican remarked, “I could never have imagined when I started in politics that we would have this kind of scenario.”. “But aside from Johnson, who else do we turn to?”.
The hard-line House Freedom Caucus was protesting and demanding Medicaid concessions that other Republicans would not accept, so the speaker had to put out one last fire near the end.
Johnson sat in with top lieutenants during a White House meeting with the holdouts — pressing Representatives — as Trump poured out the fire hose. Andy Harris of Maryland, Chip Roy of Texas, and other conservatives will support the bill.
“It was difficult. One Republican briefed on the meeting claimed that there was no back and forth. “He handed it to them. “”.
Johnson triumphantly made his way back to the Capitol. “We’re going to proceed as planned,” he informed reporters.
Legislative Affairs Director James Braid and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair were among the White House officials with whom Roy and Harris huddled through the night. In order to address Medicaid and other issues on their wish list, the hardliners pushed for and allegedly obtained executive order promises.
During a nine-hour vote series, Johnson met one-on-one on the floor with a number of members who had previously objected as night gave way to morning.
Rep. Around 3 a.m., Texas fiscal hawk Michael Cloud, who had just days before claimed the bill “fell short,” spoke with Johnson. m. Representative. Later that morning, Georgia’s Andrew Clyde, who secured a significant concession that ended the taxation of firearm silencers, sat with the speaker.
And shortly before 7 a.m., Republicans passed the huge bill. m. Miller and the speaker exchanged handshakes after speaking for a few minutes.
The gathered hardliners did not cast any dramatic last-minute votes, in contrast to a number of previous high-stakes votes during Johnson’s speakership and predecessor Kevin McCarthy’s.
His group was certain that the hard strategies had been successful. “They always fold,” a top GOP official stated.
