President Donald Trump and House Republican leaders worked furiously on Wednesday to try to persuade holdouts to provide the necessary votes to pass the nearly 900-page package of tax and spending cuts sent over by the Senate yesterday. The package remains stalled in the House as negotiations continue and some “no” votes gradually move into the “yes” column, leaving open the possibility that Republicans may be able to pass the bill ahead of the July 4 deadline set by Trump.
“Making progress. I mean, good conversations, and I think we can, I’m hopeful we can proceed tonight, get this done,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.
Procedural vote stalled: In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast after the Senate vote on Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a MAGA Trump loyalist, warned that House Republicans didn’t have the votes to pass the bill and called the process “a s—tshow.”
The show continued Wednesday as House leaders pressed ahead with a series of procedural votes on the bill but were forced to hold open one of those votes for hours as they negotiated with holdouts — and waited for some members delayed by weather to arrive at the Capitol. That vote began shortly after 2 p.m. ET and was still open four hours later.
The House Freedom Caucus circulated a three-page memo detailing more than a dozen criticisms of the Senate-passed bill. Their complaints included concerns about the deficit-raising effects of the legislation. “The bill violates the House framework of $1 of tax cuts for $1 of spending cuts (with 2.6% economic growth),” the memo says, adding, “This was not what [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune and Speaker Johnson promised.”
The Senate version of the bill is projected to add roughly $4 trillion to deficits over 10 years, far exceeding the roughly $2.8 trillion that would be added by a version of the package that passed the House in May.
Discussions with hardliners reportedly focused on ways that the administration could implement the legislation to address the concerns they raised. White House Budget Director Russell Vought joined the talks in the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, reportedly to address plans for implementing the legislation and discuss additional spending cuts. Those negotiations came after lawmakers also met at the White House with Trump and with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Director Mehmet Oz.
Some moderate Republicans have also raised concerns about the bill, primarily centered on steep cuts to Medicaid that they worry will hurt their constituents and prove costly for GOP candidates in 2026 elections.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana told reporters that GOP leaders were not considering making changes to the bill before the final vote. “It’s not as easy as saying, ‘Hey, I just want one more change,’ because one more change could end up being what collapses the entire thing,” Scalise said.
The bottom line: We told you after the Senate vote yesterday that the drama wasn’t done…and it still isn’t. The House “could be in for another all-nighter,” Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. “House GOP leadership is optimistic they'll get the holdouts to flip in the coming hours — it's just a matter of when.”