Updated May 20, 2025 at 9:46 AM EDT
President Donald Trump travelled to Capitol Hill Tuesday to personally persuade holdouts within his own party to get behind a massive bill meant to advance much of the GOP agenda.
Trump outwardly ignored the divisions still plaguing efforts to finalize the legislation ahead of a self-imposed deadline to vote on the bill before Memorial Day. Instead, he declared his party was unified.
"This is really just a pep talk. We have a very unified House, and we have a very unified Senate," Trump said as he entered the meeting. "I don't think the Republican party has ever been so unified."
It's rare for one single bill to contain the bulk of a president's legislative agenda, but Trump has pushed Republicans in Congress to pass tax cuts, spending cuts, deregulation and a boost in border security funding in what he calls "one, big, beautiful bill."
Writing legislation that meets those demands has exposed rifts within the GOP-led House and Senate that threaten to derail the bill entirely.
After a handful of Republican members tanked a budget committee vote on Friday, House GOP leaders spent the weekend negotiating with holdouts to get closer to consensus.
Late Sunday night, that same committee advanced the bill — with the original holdouts voting "present."
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy said he voted present "out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward."
Roy and his fellow Freedom Caucus members left the vote saying that while progress was made, they need to see more concessions in order to support the bill in votes later this week.
Trump focused his ire on another holdout, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has insisted he cannot back the bill.
"I think he should be voted out of office," Trump said. "And I just don't think he understands government."
Trump has frequently threatened to the political careers of Republicans who disobey him.
Pressure from Pennsylvania Avenue
House leaders have long praised him for being involved and available throughout the legislative process.
"Every step of the way, when there were questions, when there were final decisions that had to be made, [President Trump] was always one phone call away," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters last week. "And he'll continue to be."
Trump has promised he would extend the tax cuts from his first term and add new ones, including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security. These cuts have added to the cost of the bill.
He has been less opinionated on specifics about how to pay for the bill or how long provisions should last — and he hasn't taken sides in the debate between House GOP factions.
Trump and GOP leaders have to convince three main groups to support the bill by House Speaker Mike Johnson's self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day:
- Hard-line fiscal hawks who are demanding deficit reduction
- Members who want to protect access to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for people with disabilities and low-income adults
- Blue state Republicans who are pushing to lift the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT)
Ahead of the meeting, Trump expressed skepticism about lifting the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT,) saying that would mainly benefit California, New York and Illinois, heaping scorn on their governors – and claimed without evidence that they had rigged the presidential election.
"I would have won California, I would have won New York. I even think I would have won Illinois," Trump said.
Members of the Freedom Caucus say the bill doesn't result in significant enough deficit reduction. They secured some concessions — namely the acceleration of the implementation of work requirements to Medicaid — but that has frustrated members who worried that the existing House could threaten coverage for more than 8.6 million people enrolled in the program, and could become a major issue in the midterm elections next year. The SALT advocates are also fundamentally at odds with the hard-line cost-cutting group.
Two former Trump aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe private conversations described Trump as being very persuasive in one-on-one conversations, calling him the "ultimate closer" who makes it hard for members to say no.
Trump recently stepped up the pressure on holdouts in his party on social media, calling on his party to unite behind the bill — and warning holdouts to get behind it.
"We don't need 'GRANDSTANDERS' in the Republican Party," Trump said in the post.
Copyright 2025 NPR
