Speaker Mike Johnson’s attempt to finally launch Republicans’ third party-line bill this week hinges on a handful of GOP holdouts Thursday.
A band of GOP fiscal hawks won’t commit to supporting the $95 billion budget framework set to be marked up in House Budget Thursday morning. Republicans rushed to assemble and move the measure of GOP priorities before breaking for August recess next week.
“I think the stupidest thing to do would be to try to jam it through committee when you’ve got bigger problem[s] on the House floor,” said panel member Rep. Chip Roy, who added “there’s more work to do” on the bill.
Besides Roy, we’ll be watching Reps. Andrew Clyde, Josh Brecheen, Erin Houchin, Ben Cline and Ralph Norman who may keep the budget resolution held up in committee Thursday.
“We don’t know yet,” Clyde said Wednesday when asked if he’ll support the framework. “There’s still some negotiation going on.”
Johnson and House lawmakers have faced enormous pressure to pass a third reconciliation bill with GOP priorities members can run on in the upcoming midterms. That pressure may be pushed even higher Thursday night, as President Donald Trump — who has relentlessly lobbied Congress to pass his SAVE America Act — is planning a prime time speech focused on election security.
The measure Budget Republicans will mark up Thursday includes parts of Trump’s coveted election security bill, but it doesn’t offset any new spending with cuts nor does it include a raft of member priorities — such as tax provisions, energy provisions, or fraud-busting efforts.
Johnson is now facing an uphill battle to keep his conference united, even after Vice President JD Vance tried to rally them in a closed-door meeting Wednesday. Vance said the budget resolution was the best vehicle for passing parts of SAVE — according to five people granted anonymity to share details from inside the room.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said the window of opportunity for the party-line bill will close if House Republicans can’t advance it out of committee in the next few days, warning that “if we don’t open it up this week, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Johnson wants his full chamber to advance the measure next week and the Senate to adopt it before departing for August recess.
Across the Capitol, few Senate Republicans think that can happen. Incoming Budget Chair Ron Johnson says he’s not the only senator who has issues with the lack of pay-fors in House Republicans’ plan.
“I’ve got other members on the committee that also insist on offsets,” he said.
So far, House GOP leaders are quelling concerns from conference members the same way they have in the past: telling them it can be included in the next reconciliation bill.
“We’re right now looking at a reconciliation 4.0 to do the things that are left out of this one,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said.
— DEMS KEEP PRESSURE ON BLANCHE: Democrats are trying to make supporting Trump’s pick for attorney general, Todd Blanche, as politically painful as possible for Republicans during a second round of hearings. On Thursday, they’ll host Dani Bensky, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s whose identity was exposed as part of the release of the Epstein files Blanche oversaw, and Elizabeth Oyer, an ousted Justice Department pardon attorney who claims she was fired by Blanche in retaliation to her work. Both are part of the outside witness panel coming before Judiciary to testify on Blanche’s record. Democrats may consider their prime persuasion target to be Sen. John Cornyn — who Wednesday appeared unsatisfied by Blanche’s answers that the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” he helped launch was, in fact, “dead.”
— CONGRESS BRACES FOR TRUMP ADDRESS: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are bracing for Trump’s speech Thursday night, where he’s promising to reveal “really big news” on election security. Republicans, including those in Trump’s inner circle, have pleaded for months for him to focus on the economy ahead of the midterms. Instead the president is using the rare prime time address to talk about 2020 and “free and fair elections,” alarming some in the GOP who worry he will continue to make baseless claims or repeat debunked conspiracies.
Meredith Lee Hill, Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes, Chris Marquette, Jordain Carney, Alex Gangitano, Megan Messerly and Myah Ward contributed to this report.