President Trump’s dealmaking instincts are complicating ongoing negotiations around health insurance subsidies after he urged conservatives to compromise on government funding for abortion. His insistence that a deal must be made was quickly denounced by his anti-abortion allies on Tuesday. 

One of the main sticking points in the bipartisan negotiations around Obamacare health insurance subsidies is the Hyde Amendment, a longstanding legislative provision barring the use of federal funds for abortion services. The only exceptions are allowing the use of funds to save the life of a mother or to provide an abortion if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. 

Despite professing to be a staunch supporter of the amendment for more than a decade, Mr. Trump now says reforms to it should be a carrot for Democrats as part of the health insurance subsidies negotiations. 

“You have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” Mr. Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday during a speech at the Kennedy Center. “You know that. You gotta be a little flexible. You gotta work something [out].”

The comments mark the first time that Mr. Trump has expressed an openness on a specific policy area to negotiate with Democrats. The Affordable Care Act subsidies, a Biden-era tax credit, expired at the end of 2025 after the president said he did not want to extend what he argues is a giveaway to insurance companies.

At the beginning of last year, Mr. Trump explicitly stated that he was still a staunch supporter of the Hyde Amendment. “It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” an executive order signed by the president last year states. 

Allies were quick to denounce Mr. Trump’s plea for a negotiation on the Hyde Amendment as part of the health insurance discussions. The deal is currently being hammered out by a small band of senators, which requires 60 votes to break the filibuster and pass legislation. 

One of those negotiators, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, says any changes to the Hyde Amendment would be a nonstarter for him personally. “​​I’m not flexible on the value of every child’s life. Children are valuable,” Mr. Lankford told reporters on Tuesday. 

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America — a group which has tussled with Mr. Trump and his team in the past — also says a negotiation on the Hyde Amendment cannot be a part of any deal. 

“To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment. If Republicans abandon Hyde, they are sure to lose this November,” the group said in a press release Tuesday. “The voters sent a GOP trifecta to Washington and they expect it to govern like one.”

Even if the Senate Republicans and Democrats were able to make a deal on any changes to the Hyde Amendment, it’s unclear if the House Republican majority would be able to stomach it. Speaker Mike Johnson, an avowed opponent of abortion rights, has long supported the policy. 

“Americans should never be forced to pay for abortions against their will. Life must be protected. And Congress must recognize the importance of standing for both the woman and the child,” he said at a Judiciary Committee hearing in 2021. “Our government should never be in the business of financing the abortion industry.”