With the House at a standstill amid GOP disputes about proxy voting for new parents, a sense is growing that President Trump might have to weigh in to get them out of the chaos — and he is already being pulled into the battle.
The arcane disputes on constitutionality, quorum, discharge petitions, procedural rules, and hardball tactics from leadership appeared to — understandably — be extremely low on the president’s priority list. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday she had not talked to Trump about the issue.
If he didn’t know about it before, he does now. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla), who is leading the GOP rebels as she advocates for parental proxy voting, said on NewsNation Wednesday night that she had talked to the president about the matter.
“The President assured that this would get resolved,” Luna said, arguing that she and the eight other Republicans who voted with her are not blocking Trump’s agenda, since leadership could tee up legislation on judges and proof of citizenship to vote without killing her proxy voting push.
The fact is, though, that the GOP dispute is derailing Trump-supported bills and could hold up the House floor indefinitely. Other Republicans are threatening to block any procedural rules to tee up other business until Luna’s push is squashed, according to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
The clash has now broken out of legislative procedure-nerd circles and into the broader sphere — with Trump allies like Cleta Mitchell, the elections reform activist was central in Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, chiming in on X to scold Luna for being “self-centered.”
It seems that the only thing that has reliably held the fractious, razor-thin House Republican majority together this year on critical votes is Trump.
The president talked on the phone with Reps. Keith Self (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) to push them to re-elect Johnson as Speaker, as the vote was still ongoing. And Trump had multiple phone calls with Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), a final holdout on the budget resolution framework teeing up his “big beautiful bill,” in the minutes ahead of the stunning vote when the House adopted it.
Others on the right outside of Congress are turning on Luna. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s daughter Evita Pilar Duffy noted in a post on X that her dad resigned from Congress in order to be with his family when her baby sister, who has down syndrome, was “born with two holes in her heart and needed a very risky surgery,” saying members should resign if they have small children and cannot fill their duties as a member of Congress.
Johnson has formed a close relationship with the president, with other Republicans sometimes chalking up the Speaker’s success so far to that alliance.
Luna has noted that Ivanka Trump oversaw extension of paid maternity and paternity leave benefits to the federal workforce in Trump’s first term, and that Trump supported that.
Luna said last week that she heard leadership was considering trying to get outside pressure on her — declining to confirm that meant Trump. “You guys can assume,” she said.
I’m Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill, here with a weekly look at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. Tell me what’s on your radar: ...
