Following chaos and delay, the House on Tuesday passed the Republican budget resolution to start the process to enact President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda by a vote of 217-215 — a big and critical win for Speaker Mike Johnson, who was dealing with an extremely narrow GOP majority.
GOP leaders were able to successfully flip Reps. Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson and Victoria Spartz, three of four holdouts. The other, Rep. Thomas Massie, was the only Republican who voted against the resolution. Republicans could afford to lose only one vote.
“A lot of work yet to be done, but we’re going to celebrate tonight, and we’ll roll up our sleeves and get right back at it in the morning,” Johnson said to reporters after the vote.
It was not clear whether Republicans would have the votes to pass the measure on Tuesday afternoon and into the evening. At least four Republicans members had said they would vote no on the plan and Johnson could afford only one defection.
House Republicans held open their first vote Tuesday night for more than an hour as leadership tried to wrangle votes for the funding resolution and Democrats protested.
GOP leaders then briefly pulled the budget resolution — the next vote in a series — from the schedule and rescheduled it a few minutes later and called the entire House back to the chamber.
Democratic leaders were able to get more of their members to attend the critical vote. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who is on maternity leave, showed up to vote with her son. Rep. Kevin Mullin, who has a medical condition, showed up with a walker. House Democratic leaders complained in a message to Democrats that Johnson was trying to “jam” the budget resolution through after assuring them there would be no further votes in the House for the night.
Before the vote, Johnson told reporters, “We are trying to work through concerns and issues. A lot of people want to make sure we are cutting an appropriate amount … it’s a very complicated negotiation … we will get there.”
The resolution now heads to the Senate, where it is an open question as to what leadership will do with the blueprint. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has a different approach in the upper chamber — focusing one bill on defense and border security spending and a later one that would deal with tax cuts and the debt ceiling, although the president has wholly endorsed the House Republican blueprint.
Republicans plan to use reconciliation, a tactic that requires only a simple majority to pass. But under reconciliation, both chambers must adopt the exact same resolution.
“This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us,” Johnson said after the vote. “We are going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it, and this is the first step of that process.”
Republicans leaned on Trump to pressure the holdouts and other GOP members who were undecided.
“The president has talked to a number of members. He’s made his intentions well known and he wants them to vote for this and move it along so we can start the process,” Johnson said.
But later Tuesday, while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, Trump said, “I’m not involved in that. They know what I want.”
Burchett told ABC News that he spoke to Trump, but declined to divulge details on the conversation.
Johnson earlier was uncertain if the vote would happen Tuesday, suggesting it could get pushed.
“There may be a vote tonight. There may not be. Stay tuned. That’s why you get paid. Hang around here,” he said to reporters.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise defended the budget — contending that Democrats were “lying” when they asserted that Republicans are primed to make deep cuts to Medicaid.
“This bill doesn’t even mention the word ‘Medicaid’ a single time, and yet, all Democrats are doing is lying about what’s in the budget because they don’t want to talk about the truth,” Scalise said. “Instead of just sitting back and licking their wounds that they’re completely out of touch with the American people, their only choice is to resort to lying about what’s in this vote today. There is no Medicaid in this bill. There are no Medicaid cuts in this bill. Yet that’s all they’re saying.”
While the blueprint itself does not mention Medicaid directly, it sets a goal of at least $2 trillion in cuts to mandatory federal spending, which includes funding for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Johnson and his leadership team worked for weeks to mollify concerns.
Following a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, Massie quipped that GOP leaders have “convinced him” to vote no — predicting the measure would actually increase the deficit by billions of dollars.
Nevertheless, Johnson defended the blueprint.
“The objective and our commitment has always been deficit neutrality. That’s the goal here. If we can reduce the deficit, even better,” Johnson said responding to accusations that the plan would increase the deficit.
Some additional Republicans were undecided, including New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, stressing she was acting on behalf of her aging constituency.
“I’m still undecided, but I’m leaning more towards yes because I’ve gotten some clarity and assurances that make me feel comfortable allowing this process to move forward,” she said. “We have to make sure that leadership includes those of us who have large Medicaid populations in that process.”
Self-proclaimed “budget hawk” Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick said earlier he was still “in discussions” on whether or not to back the resolution.
“I’d like us to be more aggressive on spending cuts so we can save on things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,” he said.
“I am trying to figure out exactly what this entails… how this bill is going to affect the actual hard numbers, and that’s what I’m interested in,” he said.
House Democrats gathered on the Capitol steps Tuesday afternoon to protest an “assault” on democracy and the “reckless Republican budget.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries led the group of lawmakers, declaring that Democrats have unified their opposition against the measure.
“So let me be clear, House Democrats will not provide a single vote to this reckless Republican budget, not one, not one, not one. They will not get a single Democratic vote. Why? Because we’re voting with the American people,” he said.
Jeffries said the GOP budget plan “represents the largest Medicaid cut in American history,” adding that “children will be devastated. Families will be devastated. People with disabilities will be devastated. Seniors will be devastated. Hospitals will be devastated; nursing homes will be devastated.”
“Everything we care about is under assault. The economy is under assault. The safety net is under assault. Our very way of life as a country is under assault. Democracy itself is under assault. Donald Trump, the administration and House Republicans are hurting the American people,” he said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
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