President Trump touted the unified GOP when he visited the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to huddle with House Republicans to build support for the massive bill carrying his legislative agenda.
The meeting to rally Republicans was necessary because not enough lawmakers are on board to pass his “big, beautiful bill.”
“We have a tremendously unified party. I don’t think we’ve ever had a party like this,” Mr. Trump said when he arrived at the Capitol. “There are some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don’t like or they’re not going to get, but I think we’re going to have tremendous, not luck, we have tremendous talent.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to pass it on Thursday ahead of Congress’ weeklong Memorial Day recess.
Mr. Trump said there are a few Republicans who are grandstanding on the bill.
“It’s the biggest bill ever passed, but we gotta get it done. Tremendous tax cuts for people, tremendous incentives, tremendous regulation cuts,” he said.
Mr. Trump said there will be no cuts on “anything meaningful. The only thing we’re cutting is waste, fraud and abuse.”
“We’re not changing Medicaid, and we’re not changing Medicare, and we’re not changing Social Security, and if I wanted to do those things, I would’ve done it during my four years that we were here,” he said.
The president called the SALT deduction — the state and local tax deductions pushed by blue state Republicans — an interesting topic.
Mr. Trump said he doesn’t “think the Republican Party has ever been so unified.”
“It’s become a much bigger party. We’re winning the labor vote … we won the Teamsters … look how well we did with the automakers,” he said.
He said Republicans who vote against his bill “wouldn’t be a Republican much longer.”
