Republicans are scrambling to shore up the votes in the House to approve the Senate-adopted budget resolution, necessary for being able to draft and pass President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
Thursday morning, a little more than an hour before the House was set to reconvene to vote on the measure after leaders were forced to punt Wednesday night, Speaker Mike Johnson appeared alongside Senate Majority Leader John Thune to project unity — and promise they want to reduce the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion in Trump's package of tax cuts, beefed up border security, energy policies and more.
"I'm happy to tell you this morning I believe we have the votes," Johnson said at the leadership press conference after failing to sway roughly a dozen holdouts just over 12 hours earlier.
“Our ambition in the Senate is we are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings. The speaker has talked about $1.5 trillion we have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum," Thune said.
Johnson also said Republicans are committed to finding $1.5 trillion in savings while protecting "essential programs," like Medicaid, and "many of us are going to aim much higher" than $1.5 trillion for deficit reduction targets.
Now they have to sell that pledge to win over a final band of House holdouts, with the clock ticking fast. As Johnson and Thune expressed confidence they were poised to break the impasse, a group of House conservatives huddled elsewhere to plot their next moves, wanting sure-fire certainty they will get deeper spending cuts in the framework for Trump's bill than the Senate's budget resolution would by itself allow.
The verbal commitment from the two GOP leaders may not go as far as some holdouts want, as many House hardliners have floated changing the budget resolution to require the Senate to formally commit to a higher level of savings. That would require the budget resolution to be pinged back to the Senate for yet another vote-a-rama — something House and Senate leadership as well as the White House want to avoid.
But some holdouts believe the public promise Thursday morning will flip enough votes for the budget resolution to advance today — without changes to the underlying measure — in time to send members home for a two-week recess.
And Trump is continuing his public pressure campaign for the House to act with a new social media post that also expressed confidence that members could come up with a deal before leaving for a two-week recess.
"Great News! 'The Big, Beautiful Bill' is coming along really well," he wrote. "Republicans are working together nicely. Biggest Tax Cuts in USA History!!! Getting close."
