Donald Trump and House Republican leaders hope the president can be the party’s closer on Wednesday as he tries to personally convince enough conservative and moderate holdouts to push his domestic policy agenda across the finish line.
Trump was slated to meet separately at the White House with members of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and another group of moderate House Republicans about his signature legislation known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” a White House official said Wednesday.
The mammoth bill, which contains much of his second-term domestic agenda, passed the Senate on Tuesday, with changes to the version the House passed by a single vote in May. The bill is now back in the House, where GOP leaders hope to clear it for Trump’s signature by July 4.
The separate meetings were expected to begin late Wednesday morning and conclude sometime in the afternoon, the White House official said, declining to lay out exactly when each arm-twisting session would begin. Photographers positioned outside the West Wing said they spotted New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a key GOP moderate, using a side entrance around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
As some Republican and Democratic House members struggled Tuesday evening to get back to Washington due to a line of thunderstorms that triggered flight delays across the country, the White House official said administration aides believed all GOP members summoned to the White House had managed to get back to town.
Trump would be delivering his closing argument two days before his stated deadline of July 4 to sign the bill — though he has indicated in recent days that he would not object if Republican lawmakers needed more time.
Before the high-stakes White House meetings began, the president once again took to social media to begin his closing pitch. His message was built around his contention that the GOP-led bill would spawn economic growth and a desire for Republicans to avoid being “grandstanders,” more eager for their own attention than passing his domestic objectives.
“Nobody wants to talk about GROWTH, which will be the primary reason that the Big, Beautiful Bill will be one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever passed,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, tying the legislation to his tariffs on most other countries. “Our Country will make a fortune this year, more than any of our competitors, but only if the Big, Beautiful Bill is PASSED!”
“As they say, Trump’s been right about everything, and this is the easiest of them all to predict. Republicans, don’t let the Radical Left Democrats push you around,” he added. “We’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them. Last year America was a ‘DEAD’ Nation, with no hope for the future, and now it’s the ‘HOTTEST NATION IN THE WORLD!’ MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
In another post, this one in all-capital letters, Trump declared that the bill was “ALL ABOUT GROWTH.”
“IF PASSED, AMERICA WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE LIKE NEVER BEFORE,” the president said. “IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING, JUST IN ANTICIPATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL BILL. DEFICIT CUT IN HALF, RECORD INVESTMENT — CASH, FACTORIES, JOBS POURING INTO THE USA. MAGA!!!”
Congressional Democrats and budget experts, however, are not so sure.
“Every single House Democrat will vote ‘hell no’ against this ‘one big ugly bill.’ And all we need Are for House Republicans to join us in defense of their constituents who will suffer mightily from this bill,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said at a morning news conference on the Capitol steps, flanked by a throng of House Democrats.
“Children will be hurt, families will be hurt. People with disabilities will be hurt. Women will be hurt by what is an all out assault on the health care of the American people, an unprecedented assault, ripping health care away from more than 17 million Americans. Premiums, copays and deductibles for other people on private insurance will go up all across the country,” the New York lawmakers said. “Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, community based clinics will not have the ability to operate and as a result people are going to die connected to this ‘one big ugly bill,’ tens of thousands of unnecessary American deaths per year. Shame on Republicans for even bringing this bill to the House floor.”
Meanwhile, Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Tuesday that the think tank had concluded that the Senate-approved version of the budget measure amounted to “blatant disregard” for “our nation’s fiscal condition.”
“The House should reject the Senate bill out of hand. It adds $1 trillion more to the debt than their [version of the] bill, and violates their budget resolution framework by $600 billion or more,” she said in a statement. “The Senate reconciliation bill fails almost every test of fiscal responsibility. Instead of worrying about arbitrary deadlines or sparing the Senate another vote-a-rama, fiscal conservatives should stand up for what’s right and reject the Senate plan to explode our debt.”
As members began shuffling in and out of the White House, the House moved one step closer to crucial votes on the sprawling measure.
The House agreed, 212-211, to consider the rule that would guide floor consideration of the Senate’s reconciliation measure. GOP leaders had scheduled a floor vote on that rule for early afternoon on a pressure-packed day on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Notably, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told Fox Business on Tuesday that GOP leaders did not plan to allow amendments to the Senate version because Trump sent word that he wanted to sign the measure “as is.”
“Wants it on his desk by Independence Day. He wants to sign this thing and deliver on the promises that he made to the American people,” the Minnesota Republican said, referring to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign vow. “And if you look at the bill, it basically is 85 percent of what the House sent over. So, there are some changes, but I think they’re changes that the president has adopted. He likes the bill. He wants the bill passed. We’re going to get it done tomorrow.”
Nina Heller contributed to this report.
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