Inside the House Freedom Caucus’ Meeting with President Trump

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus opened up to The Daily Signal about their meeting with President Donald Trump to discuss avoiding a government shutdown and passing the Trump agenda.

The caucus met with Trump on Wednesday to discuss the plans to continue to fund the government while the president implements his reforms of the federal workforce and policies. Congress is moving to pass a continuing resolution by March 14 to avert the shutdown.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., explained that the continuing resolution would help the president and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, to continue with their reforms of federal expenditures. 

“You know, in the meeting with the president yesterday, I think he made it clear, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought made it clear, that in order to keep Elon Musk and DOGE operating and functional, we need to keep the government funded. We need to keep it open, keeping in mind, of course, that the president is willing to withhold funds under a yearlong continuing resolution that is not consistent with the administration’s agenda,” Harris explained. 

The Maryland lawmaker pointed out that the continuing resolution was fiscally responsible because it prevented increases in federal spending by keeping funding at current levels. 

“This continuing resolution is absolutely fiscally responsible, because it actually freezes funding,” Harris told The Daily Signal.

The previous funding levels were largely determined by Democrats‘ priorities, given that Republican leaders failed to properly use their leverage to curb spending and given that President Joe Biden was in the White House.

Despite this and their big loss in the November elections, Democrats still think they’re in a position to make demands. “If we have to negotiate this with Democrats, it will cost us well over $100 billion in the 10 year window,” Harris said.

“I’m 100% behind the president’s request. I think, by next week, I’m hoping that we can get, like we did last week, again, almost the entire Republican conference to back Mr. Trump’s agenda on this,” Harris concluded. 

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., explained that in his view, there were really only two options before Congress: a government shutdown or passing a continuing resolution. 

“We can be as critical of the speaker as we want to about this, but he doesn’t have a partner to work with if there’s not going to be a commitment on the Senate side to get these appropriations bills done. So, we’re left with a circumstance of either a shutdown or the continuing resolution, right?” he said. 

“So, there’s policies in the [continuing resolution] that I don’t love and would [not] support if given the opportunity. At the same time, at least, if nothing else, at least the CR freezes the spending level, which—you know Washington, D.C. That’s a win by any standard whatsoever,” Perry continued. 

The Pennsylvania congressman also praised DOGE head Musk’s efforts at reforming the spending of the federal government. 

“Let’s face it, we’ve also got the advent of this new thing called DOGE, which is identifying all this fraud, waste, and abuse by name,” he said. 

Perry said he thinks Congress needs to find savings and get itself back on the path to fiscal solvency. 

“I agree completely with the president’s effort and ambition to balance the budget, and it begins with recognizing that you’re spending way too much money on things that we can’t afford, and that spending is the reason why prices across the board for consumers have gone up and have stayed up,” the Pennsylvania lawmaker said. 

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told The Daily Signal that he did not think he had enough information yet to make an informed decision. 

“I come to this from a perspective of being opposed to a continuing resolution. I’m open to hearing out the plans from the Trump administration. I don’t know that we got to enough detail that I feel comfortable with [it] yet, and so, I’m going to continue to have conversations with the Trump administration. I want to support the president. I just also need to, I need to make sure that I’m representing my district,” Burlison said. 

The Missouri lawmaker also stressed the need for bringing federal spending under control. 

“I think that when it comes to a lot of our policies, we need to get back to pre-COVID-era policies. When it comes to Medicaid, when it comes to our SNAP [food stamp] program, all of our welfare programs that were dramatically expanded under Joe Biden, we need to just bring [them] back to reality in the way they were before COVID happened, and so we need to do structural changes,” the Missouri congressman explained. 

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. Trump is only going to be president for four years. We need to win,” Burlison argued. 

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga. told The Daily Signal he had not made up his mind yet about supporting the continuing resolution. 

“Whether I will support [the continuing resolution] or not remains to be seen, based on the text of the legislation. I need to read it first, but kind of at a very top-line level, I believe that we need to go forward and maintain the government funding so that the president can continue his work, the DOGE can continue their work, that the executive branch can continue complying with the executive orders of the president, and we will continue moving forward and putting our country back on the right track,” Clyde said.

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