In a Blow to Trump, Johnson Pulls Framework for the President’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ After Conservatives Revolt

The House now plans to take up the Senate’s amended budget framework on Thursday at the earliest after spending hawks revolted against Speaker Johnson and President Trump on Wednesday night. Mr. Johnson tells the Sun that Mr. Trump is supportive of the plan as they find a way forward. The House passed in February a budget framework that mandated at least $1.5 trillion in cuts to the budget over the next 10 years, though the Senate amended that bill to make the floor for cuts just $4 billion in the next decade — which is equivalent to only one day of borrowing. When the amended Senate version came to the House floor for a vote, around 20 deficit hawks told the speaker they could not vote for it. “This is part of the process,” Mr. Johnson told reporters after emerging from a conference room just off the House floor on Wednesday. He met with the holdouts for more than an hour as the chamber was left in limbo. “I’m very optimistic about the outcome of this — This one, big beautiful bill.”The speaker says the House will either take a vote Thursday morning after further negotiations with his colleagues and the Senate, or the two chambers will go straight to conference committee to reconcile the differences in minimum spending cut levels. Mr. Johnson tells the Sun that he spoke to Mr. Trump on Wednesday night and informed him of the new plan. He says the president is on board. “I did talk to the president,” Mr. Johnson said. “I stepped out to the side room over here and spoke with the president and told him exactly what we’re doing. He understands it. He supports the process. He wants us to do this right and do it well.”“Sometimes it takes a little bit more time to do that,” the speaker asserted. Both the House and Senate are due to leave town for two weeks for their spring recess on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Johnson tells the Sun that that is still “the plan.”Shortly after speaking with the Sun, Mr. Johnson went to the floor and pulled the vote. Prior to their meeting with Mr. Johnson, about half-a-dozen conservative lawmakers met with Senator Thune in his office on the other side of the Capitol to win assurances. No lawmakers would answer questions as they left that meeting. Mr. Thune was seen leaving his office through the back door and getting in an elevator. Around 20 hardline Republicans met with the speaker to tell them they could not vote for the current version on Wednesday. They have said in recent days that they are concerned that the Senate would not follow through on their promise to cut up to $2 trillion from the federal budget over the course of the next decade. Many of those same conservatives had told Republican leadership that they would not support this bill regardless of what promises they made. Their problem, they said, was the Senate changes made to the House version of the budget framework. “I think at this point we need to talk to Thune and leaders in the Senate,” one Freedom Caucus member, Congressman Eric Burlison, told the Sun ahead of the vote. “We want all of the things that the president wants to accomplish, which includes spending cuts. Look, spending cuts unlock so much.”The vice chairman of the Budget Committee, Congressman Lloyd Smucker — who is no conservative bomb thrower — said on the floor that he could not vote for the bill given the $4 billion floor. “It’s important we have the guardrails in the initial resolution,” Mr. Smucker said on the floor. Another Freedom Caucus lawmaker, Congressman Ralph Norman, said ahead of the vote that he would be willing to put pen to paper with senators to get specifics on what cuts exactly would be made. “The Senate put up $4 billion. We want way more than that,” Mr. Norman said. He added that he wanted to see “more than $1.5 [trillion]” on a piece of paper written by Senate leadership. When pressed by the Sun about which senator would be providing that handshake guarantee, Mr. Norman declined to answer. “I can’t tell you who,” he said with a smile. Conservatives say they warned Mr. Johnson earlier on Wednesday that he should not put the bill on the floor because it would fail. Congressman Andy Ogles told reporters after a lunch meeting that he conveyed to Mr. Johnson’s team that it would be unwise to put it up for a vote given the high likelihood of failure. Congressman Chip Roy told the Sun that he wouldn’t put it on the floor if he was running the show. “Look, I mean, I’m not the whip. I’m just telling you I wouldn’t put it on the floor,” Mr. Roy said. “I think we need to go back to the drawing board.”

In a Blow to Trump, Johnson Pulls Framework for the President’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ After Conservatives Revolt

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