House GOP leaders scramble to corral votes for Senate budget plan to advance Trump’s agenda

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is facing a growing rebellion from conservative hard-liners in the House as Republicans seek to take up a budget blueprint that was recently adopted by the Senate to pass President Donald Trump’s agenda.

House GOP leaders are eyeing a vote this week on the measure, which would unlock the path for committees to craft a massive bill to cut taxes, boost immigration enforcement and defense spending and lift the debt limit without Democratic votes.

But a slew of House conservatives have blasted the Senate’s version for requiring just $4 billion in spending cuts, which they see as insufficient. The House’s version, by contrast, called for $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending cuts while largely steering clear of specifics.

“Put it in writing. The Senate’s got to put the math in writing, like we did … and let us look at it,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said of the Senate’s proposed cuts. “We’ve got a solid group that’s a no on this,” estimating that he was among 15 to 20 Republicans vowing to vote down the budget resolution.

Those conservatives have threatened the measure’s prospects in the House, where Republicans currently have a 220-213 majority and can afford just three defections. So Johnson, once again, is leaning on Trump to twist arms and push the holdouts to back the measure, a tactic that succeeded on an earlier budget resolution and a recent government funding bill.

Trump plans to host key House Republican holdouts at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, according to a White House official. A source familiar with the matter confirmed that Freedom Caucus members are among those who have been invited. Another source said Republicans in high-tax blue states, who want to lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction, were also invited. 

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Johnson said his plan is still to put the Senate-passed budget on the House floor “this week” — before Congress departs for a two-week Easter recess — but acknowledged it will be a heavy lift. Johnson personally pitched the Freedom Caucus on the Senate blueprint at their weekly meeting on Monday night.

“We’re in the consensus-building business, as you all know,” Johnson said after huddling with rank-and-file House Republicans, “and I’m working on that around the clock, have been, trying to get everybody to yes on it.”

Asked if Trump himself will be able to rally Republicans behind the budget blueprint, Johnson said, “It will be a combination of commitments and assurances between the White House and all the leaders of both chambers.”

Although Senate GOP leaders insist their $4 billion figure for spending cuts is simply a minimum and not a target, some in the House believe the chamber is scheming to avoid deficit reduction.

“It’s, frankly, a joke from the Senate, and it’s more of the same swamp stuff that we’ve been dealing with for years, and so nothing changed,” said another Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, as he left Tuesday’s GOP conference meeting.

“They literally produced a budget that will have deficits going up,” Roy added. “I didn’t come here to make deficits go up. The Senate, apparently, did.”

Underneath the clash over the budget blueprint are serious divisions between Republicans about their tax-cut strategy and how deeply to reduce spending on Medicaid, the insurance program that covers millions of low-income Americans and some seniors.

The budget “reconciliation” process cannot formally begin until both chambers pass the same budget resolution. The process allows Republicans to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, which is necessary because they control 53 seats in the chamber and expect unified Democratic opposition to the package.

While committees can unofficially work on policy measures in the interim, the uncertainty about the budget instructions could hinder progress until the chambers agree on a budget.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a staunch Trump ally who also was the founding chairman of the Freedom Caucus, urged his colleagues behind closed doors Tuesday to back a plan for the House and Senate to create what’s known as a conference committee to negotiate their chambers’ respective budgets.

But that move could delay the process by weeks.

“If we got the votes, let’s go, but I don’t think we do, so let’s go to conference, iron it out — that’s how the process works,” Jordan said. “I would vote for” the Senate budget but “I don’t think there’s enough of our members who would vote for it, so it seems to me when you’re here, they’re there, you go to conference and you figure it out.”

Senate Republicans urged their House counterparts to get on board with the budget plan so they could quickly move on to the next steps.

“I strongly encourage the House to follow their heart, take their brain with them and pass the Senate resolution,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told NBC News on Tuesday. “It’s not a matter of winning or losing between the two houses. The Senate resolution is just a baby step.”