Trump Delivers Marching Orders to House Republicans on Budget Bill

President Donald Trump met with the entire House Republican Conference on Tuesday and delivered a strong message—namely, that the time for negotiations on the budget reconciliation bill is over.

A number of House Republicans leaving the meeting said that Trump cautioned fiscal hawks against pushing for major reductions in Medicaid and cautioned blue state Republicans against pushing for a higher cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.

There are three major factions Republican leadership must win over in the House—fiscal hawks, Medicaid moderates, and advocates of a higher SALT cap.

“He doesn’t want to increase SALT. He said, Medicaid—leave it alone unless there is waste, fraud and abuse. And we have found waste, fraud, and abuse, so we will be taking care of that, but we are not cutting Medicaid … . And the president’s very serious about this,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, D-Colo., told reporters, summarizing the meeting.

Asked whether Trump had changed minds in the meeting, Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., replied, “Probably. He was spellbinding for the first 30 minutes.”

“I think it is very, very clear the president is the leader of our party. He’s comfortable with every faction that exists within our conference. And he is a unifier,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La. “He’s completely confident that we’re going to get the job done. We generally share that same sentiment.”

However, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.—who chairs the conservative House Freedom Caucus and wants more aggressive restructuring of Medicaid—suggested that the meeting was not enough to get the bill passed this week.

“We’re still a long ways away, but we can get there. Maybe not by tomorrow, but we can get there,” he said.

“The president, I don’t think, convinced enough people that the bill is adequate the way it is. Look, the president called for eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, and we have not eliminated waste fraud, and abuse in Medicaid in this bill,” he said.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a fiscal hawk in the Freedom Caucus, refused to say whether the meeting had made him a “yes” on the bill, but told The Daily Signal, “I think that the groups need to get together and talk it out, because I think President Trump made some very valid points.”

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., one of the most skeptical members regarding the bill, smiled and said, “When he said he’s cutting drug prices 85 percent, that’s what matters to me,” when asked whether he was feeling better about the bill.

SALT Deductions

A number of House Republicans told The Daily Signal that Trump sternly cautioned Republicans against requesting a higher cap on SALT deductions and told them to take the deal that had been offered to them. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., previously offered a $30,000 cap on SALT deductions, up from $10,000.

A number of members told The Daily Signal that Trump’s was a blunt message.

“He was stern,” said Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“He was pretty blunt with the SALT caucus,” said Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri.

Asked by The Daily Signal whether Trump had put his foot down and told SALT advocates not to ask for too high of a deduction, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, replied, “Yeah, he did.”

Asked whether he took the warning to be a command to accept an offer of a $30,000 SALT cap, Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., who has said a cap increase is non-negotiable, replied, “No, I don’t take that to mean the 30K. What’s in the bill now is a total nonstarter for the SALT caucus.”

“We started to talk about numbers greater than that last night in the speaker’s office, and I hope that the president’s presence here today motivates everybody, especially my leadership, to give the SALT caucus a number to which we can actually say yes,’” said LaLota.

Medicaid

On the issue of Trump’s warning not to cut Medicaid, Freedom Caucus members seem to have taken that to heart.

“When it comes to us, the Freedom Caucus, he said just stick to the waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid. And he’s right. Everyone agrees that there’s waste, fraud, and abuse. I think it’s inappropriate for us to say we’re not going to touch it, and then leave all of this fraud that’s happening,” Burlison said.

On the other hand, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who has urged Republicans not to strip Medicaid benefits, also said he was encouraged by Trump’s warning.

“I mean, the things that we’re doing are smart, but that’s not good enough for some of the people in our conference, so I think we had a very needed message,” said Bacon.

“Kick the folks that are illegally on it off,” was how Burchett described Trump’s message. “But I took that and he meant, ‘You know, we’re going to leave the single mom with two kids alone.‘ And so to me, that’s what I wanted to hear.”

But Burchett did say that moving up Medicaid work requirements provisions—currently set to kick in not until 2029 in the bill—is “close” to being enough for him to vote for the bill.

“It’s close, but the SALT talk—I want to get the numbers on SALT of exactly what they’re saying. But I think we’re getting really close,” he said.

The bill is set to go to the House Rules Committee at 1 a.m. Wednesday for approval before being pushed to a floor vote.

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