Al Drago/Bloomberg
President Donald Trump called on members of his party to unite behind his economic agenda in Congress, putting pressure on factions of lawmakers who are calling for last-minute changes to the legislation to drop their demands.
“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” Trump said in a social media post on Friday. “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Trump sent the post from Air Force One after departing the Middle East as the House Budget Committee was meeting to approve the legislation, one of the final steps before the bill can move to the House floor for a vote.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has set a goal to pass the bill next week before the House recesses for its Memorial Day break.
However, the the bill failed the initial committee vote — typically a routine, procedural step — with members of the party still sparring over the scope of the cuts to Medicaid benefits and how much to raise the limit on the state and local tax deduction.
Narrow majorities in the House mean that a small group of Republicans can block the bill. Factions pushing for steeper Medicaid cuts and for an increase to the SALT write-off have both threatened to defeat the bill unless their demands are met.
“No one group gets to decide all this stuff in either direction,” Representative Chip Roy, an ultraconservative Texas Republican advocating for bigger spending cuts, said in a brief interview on Friday. “There are key issues that we think have this budget falling short.”
Trump’s social media muscle and calls to lawmakers have previously been crucial to advancing his priorities and come as competing constituencies have threatened to tank the measure.
But shortly after Trump’s Friday post, Roy and fellow hardliner Ralph Norman of South Carolina appeared unmoved — at least for the moment. Both men urged continued negotiations and significant changes to the bill that could in turn jeopardize support among moderates.
“I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out,” Norman said. “I think we can. We’ve made progress but it just takes time”
