President Trump summons GOP lawmakers to the White House amid internal party revolt

President Donald Trump has reportedly summoned a mix of conservative and moderate House Republicans to the White House on Wednesday, planning to shore up more “yays” for his administration’s tax and spending package, before Capitol Hill takes a procedural vote on it.

The legislation, referred to by Trump as the “big, beautiful bill,” is at the epicenter of a battle from within the Republican Party. Most GOP lawmakers had fallen in line after a White House pressure campaign, but a faction of House Republicans now threatens to block the bill unless significant changes are made.

The lawmakers are seemingly putting the POTUS’s supposed timeline to pass the legislation in jeopardy before the July 4 holiday.

Freedom caucus members demand bill amendments

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus were among the first to join the opposition. Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who voted against the procedural rule in committee early Wednesday, confirmed he was heading to the White House along with other Freedom Caucus members. 

The group has issues with the Senate’s version of the bill, which they claim veers away from the spending offsets previously agreed upon in the House.

Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland told reporters that without revisions, the group would oppose the procedural vote needed to advance the bill to debate. 

“Hopefully it goes back to Rules, gets moved closer to the House position, and the Senate gets called back into town,” Harris remarked. He was not in support of the Senate’s decision to adjourn, adding that President Trump had asked lawmakers to stay put in Washington until the legislation was resolved.

Despite their objections, Republican leadership has been reluctant to make any revisions to the Senate-passed bill. GOP sources told The Hill that the proposed law has some compromises, but it is more similar to the version the House previously approved. 

Harris insisted that he would not fall in line with the White House pressure, saying, “The White House doesn’t have a voting card.”

Speaker Johnson is ‘talking’ to the divided GOP

House Speaker Mike Johnson met with a group of conservative lawmakers Wednesday morning, including several Freedom Caucus members. 

Heading into the meeting, he told reporters, “We gotta get this done.” After more than 40 minutes, Johnson described the session as “productive” but declined to confirm if the House would proceed with the vote as scheduled. “We’ll see,” he said.

“The best thing is to send the bill back to the Senate,” Norman said, rejecting any promises of future reforms. “I’m done with promises… it’s what the president wants.”.

Moderate Republicans like Representatives Mike Lawler of New York, David Valadao of California, and Dan Newhouse of Washington were seen entering the West Wing Wednesday morning. These centrists are uneasy about proposed Medicaid cuts and the rollback of green energy tax credits, policies that could directly impact their districts.

Over the weekend, Valadao, whose district in California’s Central Valley is a dependent of Medicaid, reckoned that he could not support a final version that slashes provider taxes and funding that is imperative to the state’s hospitals. 

“I support the reasonable provisions in H.R. 1… but I will not support a final bill that eliminates vital funding streams,” he said in a Saturday statement. He reminded his colleagues that Trump had fronted the idea of eliminating waste and fraud, without harming Medicaid.

Valadao and Newhouse are the only two House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the January 6 Capitol riot, and are against the tax and spending bill.

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