House Republican leaders vowed to bring President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to the floor late Wednesday or early Thursday, after shutting down a push from the House Freedom Caucus to secure more changes.
The decision to forge ahead came after a meeting with President Trump at the White House.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, and his leadership team attended, along with several Freedom Caucus members.
“There’s not much changing here, because the underlying product we thought was so well done,” Mr. Johnson told reporters after returning to the Capitol.
The Freedom Caucus members had said earlier Wednesday that they would not support the bill unless they secured further changes to reduce federal spending on Medicaid for able-bodied adults and speed up the repeal of clean energy tax credits.
Ultimately, GOP leaders, with input from the president, decided the hard-line conservatives’ demands couldn’t be accommodated without losing other GOP votes.
“Obviously, they brought up some of the items that they’re still trying to get added, but we talked about the political dynamics and the realities of the members in our conference who aren’t for those things,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican.
Mr. Scalise said GOP leaders have had to maintain “a very delicate balance” to ensure both moderates and conservatives in the conference will support the bill. He said he was “very confident” that it would pass the House.
“In the end, I don’t know how many ‘no’ votes it will be, because some people say no and then they vote yes,” Mr. Scalise said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president reiterated during the meeting “how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible.”
“The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction,” she said.
Holdout House Freedom Caucus members, huddling back at the Capitol after the White House meeting, were mum about whether they would vote for the bill. The few who would speak to reporters cited “progress” made over the course of the day but did not elaborate.
“One way or another, we’re moving in the direction that we were wanting to go,” said Rep. Eric Burlison, Missouri Republican, calling Mr. Trump “the maestro of the deal.”
Mr. Johnson had said that Freedom Caucus’ concerns could be resolved outside of the “big, beautiful bill.”
“It’ll probably be some combination of work by the president in these areas, as well as here in Congress,” he said. “There may be executive orders related to some of these issues in the near future.”
Mr. Johnson did not elaborate on what potential executive orders may entail, but they would most likely face challenges for attempting to circumvent Congress.
The speaker said a manager’s amendment to the bill containing “minor” changes agreed to earlier in negotiations would be sent later Wednesday to the Rules Committee, which has been meeting on the bill since 1 a.m.
Mr. Scalise said the manager’s amendment will move up the implementation date for Medicaid work requirements, which were not set to kick in until 2029 under the original version of the bill.
The amendment will also make some previously agreed-upon changes that accelerate the phaseout of clean energy tax credits, although those do not go as far as the Freedom Caucus wanted.
Mr. Scalise said there will not be further changes to Medicaid provider taxes, which Freedom Caucus members have likened to a “money-laundering scam.”
States use taxes on hospitals and other health care providers to finance their share of Medicaid. But some states use the tax revenue to increase Medicaid payments to the same providers, which then inflates the total cost of their Medicaid programs and the share the federal government must contribute.
The bill freezes states’ provider taxes at their current rates and prohibits them from establishing new provider taxes, but the Freedom Caucus wanted to eliminate the provider taxes for states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare to cover more able-bodied adults.
Once the Rules Committee approves the manager’s amendment and the rule with terms for debating the bill, the full House can begin its debate, voting first on the rule and, if that test vote succeeds, the final bill.
“We’ll decide whether the vote will be tonight — passage of the rule, followed by final passage on the bill — or tomorrow morning,” Mr. Johnson said. “And we’re excited. I believe we are going to land this airplane.”
