The White House is scheduled to meet with fiscal hawks and House Republican leadership on Wednesday as progress for the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill is stalling.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) are heading to the White House for a 3 p.m. meeting with President Donald Trump, which will include members of the Freedom Caucus, multiple sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
This is the second major step Trump has taken to try to unify the Republican conference after his speech to the House GOP on Capitol Hill Tuesday failed to sway several key holdouts from both the Freedom Caucus and SALT Caucus.
The meeting at the White House comes after talks between the fiscal hawks and leadership appeared to fall apart overnight. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), who has been leading the Freedom Caucus opposition to the bill, said early Wednesday that conversations were “not good.”
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) said during a press conference Wednesday morning that the White House “offered a proposal” late Tuesday. He declined to provide specifics of the “deal” but said they are looking at “waste, fraud, and abuse” in Medicaid.
Roy said Wednesday afternoon on the Charlie Kirk Show that portions of a White House deal were taken off the table.
“I wouldn’t say it got worse [overnight], but the prospects of the bill got worse. … We’re close, but last night, it kind of went off the rails,” Roy said.
But the White House is rebutting that, with officials telling multiple reporters that “there was no deal.”
“The White House presented HFC with policy options that the Administration can live with, provided they can get the votes,” an official said, noting that there is hope that a deal will be struck after the 3 p.m. meeting.
Fiscal hawks strongly oppose the legislation that calls for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to offset renewing the 2017 tax breaks. Disagreements between the speaker and the Freedom Caucus have prevented the GOP from sending a manager’s amendment to the Rules Committee, an amendment that allows for alterations to the reconciliation bill.
“We’re … hoping we can get something that will satisfy the 12-15 members who have got to see some offsets,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), another holdout, told the Washington Examiner early Wednesday before the planned meeting was announced.
The committee is still meeting after starting at 1 a.m., with Johnson hopeful that the reconciliation bill can be voted on the House floor as soon as Wednesday evening.
Freedom Caucus members said the bill is “en route to get passed,” but they do not think it can be passed this week.
“I’m pretty confident it can be done in 10 days,” Harris said. “But that’s up to leadership to decide.”
Notably absent from the 3 p.m. meeting are Republicans who want an increase in the state and local tax cap. The Washington Examiner confirmed that the current deal is a $40,000 SALT cap that sunsets after 10 years. The previous offer had been a $40,000 cap for four years.
Usually the rabblerousers who are a thorn in Johnson’s side, fiscal hawks have accused leadership and rank-and-file members of “going rogue” and said there is too much frontloading of spending and backloading of savings. Effective dates for Medicaid work requirements and repeals of Inflation Reduction Act energy credits were sore points with the conference, as they wanted to see more immediate reforms to the programs.
Johnson can only afford to lose three votes on the legislation to pass it along party lines, with that number fluctuating depending on Democratic attendance.
TRUMP’S UNITY SPEECH DOESN’T SWAY SALT OR FREEDOM CAUCUS REPUBLICANS AT THE CAPITOL
Roy said on the Charlie Kirk Show that there is “no animosity” in these discussions and that he thinks the bill can still be voted on this week.
However, he said, “Whenever you play these pressure games, these jet fumes, holiday games, I think things get a little bit dicier and you run the risk of it all exploding.”
Lauren Green contributed to this report.