Republican hard-liners defy Trump, Johnson as megabill fails to advance

A vote on the megabill aimed at advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda failed in the House Budget Committee Friday afternoon amid objections from hard-liners, halting the bill’s progress at the committee.

Republican Reps. Andrew Clyde, Josh Brecheen, Lloyd Smucker, Ralph Norman and Chip Roy all voted against clearing the bill out of committee — defying Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson. The group complained, in part, that the bulk of savings in the legislation don’t take effect until after Trump leaves office.

The committee vote failed with just 16 lawmakers in favor, and 21 voting against.

The move is a setback for Johnson and Trump, who earlier called on the holdouts to fall in line and unite behind the bill — with Trump saying in a social media post that “we don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party.”

Norman said he wants commitments from leadership on changes to Medicaid work requirements, which won’t take effect until 2029 and imposes more frequent eligibility checks for beneficiaries.

“I am tired of smoke and mirrors,” Norman said Friday. “This isn’t a grandstand. I don’t need to grandstand.”

The ordeal has been yet another test of Johnson’s speakership as he works to placate the hard-liners and unify the factions of his conference.

House Republican leaders will now continue to negotiate with holdouts behind closed doors, and the Budget Committee will reconvene on Sunday night at 10 p.m. While the delay is not ideal, there is still a chance that the bill could clear the House before the Memorial Day recess.

The House Freedom Caucus said it is prepared to continue negotiations over the weekend after several of them blocked the more than 1,000-page megabill from advancing.

“We are not going anywhere and we will continue to work through the weekend,” the group posted on X.

The White House press secretary echoed Trump’s message that Republicans “MUST unite behind The One, Big, Beautiful Bill to lower taxes and permanently secure the border.”

“The White House will continue to have conversations over the weekend strongly urging House Members to seize the generational opportunity before them and vote YES on this historic legislation to fix the mess Joe Biden created. The White House expects ALL Republicans to vote for this bill and successfully pass it through Committee in the near future,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X Friday afternoon.

Asked by ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Jay O’Brien if he was concerned that five Republicans voted against the tax and budget measure even though Trump directed them to get on board with it, Rep. Smucker — who voted no — said it was “part of the process.”

“I mean, this happens in multiple bills. It … happened to the Democrats last cycle — it took a while to get their agenda done,” Smucker said. “We’re a diverse conference and with a very tight margin, and so it takes a while to work through these, and it’s was a very aggressive … timeline that the speaker had put forward, and I think we’re going to still meet that.”

Republicans agonized over this legislation for months, and for it to fail is an “embarrassment” for the holdouts, said Republican Rep. Tom McClintock.

“It is an embarrassment to the individuals responsible for those votes that’s for sure… that’s a matter they are going to have to discuss with their constituents over the weekend and hopefully they will feel the heat and see the light,” he said.

Budget Committee Chair Jody Arrington insisted Friday’s failure was still a “good first step” because it forced members to take a position. Arrington told reporters he doesn’t think Trump needs to start personally calling the holdouts.

The chairman was adamant this bill can still pass by Johnson’s goal of Memorial Day.

“[Trump] wants this done, and he wants it done at the earliest, practical time, and the commitment has been Memorial — by Memorial Day, and we’ve been on pace, or ahead of schedule, to accomplish that,” Arrington said.

But time is running out.

Even if the bill eventually gets out of committee, Johnson still doesn’t have the votes to pass it on the floor next week. Hard-liners still want changes to Medicaid and other spending measures, even with this expected vote just days away.

Prior to the failed vote, Majority Leader Steve Scalise explained that the bill’s timeline enables the administration to “actually create a process to implement” some of the provisions in the bill.

“We’ve got a pretty clear idea of what the final pieces are, and we’re working through those right now,” Scalise said. “We’re all in agreement on the reforms we want to make. We want to have work requirements. We want to phase out a lot of these green subsidies. You know, how quickly can you get it done? And it’s not as quickly as saying you just turn it off tomorrow.”

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, another Republican on the Budget Committee, sympathized with Norman’s “fair” concerns about delays to implementing Medicaid reforms, but he called the consensus product of 11 markups “a good start” and stressed that the Senate will have an opportunity to improve the bill.

“There’s a lot of good pieces in this legislation. You know, there’s pieces that I feel like we left ourselves short. We could have made bigger reforms, cut more spending, but at the end of the day, this is going to get the economy growing for the American people,” he said. “I think we are going to get there.”

“I think this is an important piece to move forward as it is, because we need to get the economy back on track,” Stutzman added.

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