President Donald Trump’s agenda has been thrown into chaos after a group of GOP hardliners blocked his “big, beautiful bill” from advancing out of a key House committee on Friday — dealing a major embarrassment to Republican leaders and Trump himself.
Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are now spending the weekend trying to win over those Republicans before attempting the vote again. The House Budget Committee has scheduled a rare late Sunday meeting for 10 p.m. ET to try to advance the bill out of the committee in preparation for a floor vote by the end of the week.
It will be a tough task to flip the hardliners, who are demanding more spending cuts from Medicaid and from federal clean energy programs, especially as Johnson must also be careful not to alienate moderates.
How we got here: GOP leaders took a gamble and went ahead with Friday’s committee vote despite repeated warnings from a core of right-wing Republicans that they planned to block the effort. Five Republicans ultimately opposed the bill in the Budget Committee’s meeting to stitch together the various pieces of Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts bill.
The lawmakers’ opposition enraged many members of their party, who have spent months helping draft the bill, which includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a big boost to the US military and to national security — largely paid for by overhauls to federal health and nutrition programs and cuts to energy programs.
Latest from the Hill: As Republicans discuss options for moving Trump’s agenda forward this weekend, a group of GOP lawmakers is pushing to raise taxes on high-income earners to offset the cost of SALT, a state and local tax deduction.
Swing-district members argue that raising the top tax bracket would help offset the cost of the deductions and give legislators more flexibility, but hardliners have warned they won’t agree to increasing the SALT cap if it isn’t paid for.
As the jockeying for a consensus continues, all eyes are on tonight’s House Budget Committee meeting. Republican Rep. Buddy Carter, who serves on the committee, voiced confidence that Trump’s bill will pass this week, telling Fox News yesterday that he is “very confident we will get it done.”
“It’ll be on the floor Wednesday, Thursday at the latest,” the Georgia Republican said.
CNN’s Riane Lumer contributed to this report.
