President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” for his agenda is one step closer to the finish line after House Speaker Mike Johnson managed to wrangle up enough votes from his fractious caucus on a crucial vote. 

Republicans passed a key budget resolution 217-215, which is the first step to use the budget reconciliation process to bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to pass legislation, but not before some wrangling and a scramble for lawmakers who had left for the night to get back to the Capitol. 

Republican leadership originally planned to vote on the resolution on Tuesday evening. However, fears that a group of four conservative lawmakers would tank the resolution due to concerns it did not include deep enough cuts to federal spending led to the vote being called off — temporarily.

Leadership held open a vote on a different matter for more than an hour as they tried to win over at least three of the defectors. They could only lose one if every member was present. After their efforts seemed to fail to convince the holdouts, it was announced that the vote on the budget resolution was canceled.

About 10 minutes later, after some phone calls from Mr. Trump to the few holdouts, leadership announced that the vote was back on, and Congressman Thomas Massie was the only Republican to vote against it.

The ability to win over the support of Reps. Tim Burchett, Warren Davison, and Victoria Spartz gave Republicans the necessary votes and set off a scramble to get members back who had already left the Capitol thinking their work was done for the night.

Congressman Steve Womack told Axios he was at a bar and “halfway home” when he got the call to return to the Capitol. Meanwhile, Congressman Scott Fitzgerald said he was “already in my pajamas.”

Additionally, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, who is sick, showed up to vote.

Democrats also tried their best to make the math as difficult for Republicans as possible. 

A Democratic congresswoman who gave birth a month ago, Brittany Pettersen, showed up to vote with her infant. Meanwhile, Congressman Kevin Mullin, who had been hospitalized for a week due to a blood clot and infection, traveled to Washington with an IV on the plane for the vote. 

The budget resolution allows for up to $4.5 trillion in new deficits to extend Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. It also calls for $300 billion in new spending for border security, a $4 trillion debt limit increase, and a target of $2 trillion in spending cuts.

While the vote was crucial to start the process of crafting one reconciliation bill to tackle Mr. Trump’s priorities on taxes, the border, and military spending, its fate appeared uncertain as conservative lawmakers voiced concerns that it does not cut spending enough.

Despite House Republican leaders’ attempts to win over the holdouts, it appears Mr. Trump’s calls may have been what swung their votes. 

Mr. Burchett told reporters, “He was very — very kind, and he listened to my concerns. And my concerns are spending … He’s committed to me that he is going to go after the spending and — and a lot of these big departments.”

Mr. Johnson also credited the president for helping to get enough votes and conceded that there is still “a lot of hard work ahead of us.”

“We are going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re gonna deliver all of it, not just parts of it, and this was the first step in that process,” he told reporters after the vote.

Mr. Trump celebrated the vote in a post on Truth Social, writing, “Big First Step Win for Speaker Mike Johnson, and AMERICA. Now let’s start to BALANCE THE BUDGET. IT CAN BE DONE!!!”

While Republicans were able to pass the resolution, it further underscored the difficulties Mr. Johnson could face as lawmakers work to cobble together the actual bill. 

Further complicating the math for Republicans are reports that they will have to make cuts to Medicaid. The resolution directs the Energy and Commerce Committee to slash $880 billion in federal spending. 

That committee has jurisdiction over Medicaid, which has fueled concerns that Republicans will have to make major cuts to the program to hit their spending cut goal, something that would likely not go over well with more centrist members of the party.

However, Republican leaders have pushed back on the claim that they will have to make cuts to Medicaid. Instead, they insist they will be able to do so by eliminating “fraud, waste, and abuse” in Medicaid.