The House GOP Has a Trust Problem

You know things are getting bad when Congress shows up for work on a Sunday night.

The House Budget Committee convened at 10:26 p.m. last night, in order to hold a key vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 1,116-page Republican package to cut taxes, increase defense and border security spending, cut Medicaid and food aid spending, and raise the debt ceiling, among other GOP priorities.

Last night’s meeting was only necessary because Republicans had first attempted to advance the bill out of committee in a Friday session (itself a sign of urgency), which ended in an embarrassing 16-21 vote against advancing the package.

On Friday, Republican Reps. Josh Brecheen (OK), Andrew Clyde (GA), Ralph Norman (SC), and Chip Roy (TX) — members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus — all voted “no” on the GOP megabill, which they believe doesn’t cut enough government spending.

By Sunday, things had improved for the megabill, but only slightly. The new vote was 17-16 in favor of advancing, but the four aforementioned hardliners didn’t cast “yes” votes. They simply voted “present” (Congress-speak for abstaining), allowing the measure to advance without committing to support it themselves.

In short, the package lived to fight another day — simply by sweeping under the rug fierce disputes which will eventually need to be resolved. Republican leaders are hoping to pass the package out of the House by Memorial Day, one week from today; if Brecheen, Clyde, Norman, and Roy all vote against the measure on the floor, it will fail.

To coax the quartet from opposition to abstention, House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to make changes to the package.

According to Punchbowl News, modifications being discussed include more quickly ending a slate of clean energy tax credits and phasing in new work requirements for Medicaid. (The current draft calls for the final Inflation Reduction Act tax credits to be scrapped by 2028 and the work requirements to be imposed by 2029). Conservatives are also pushing for changes to the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), which is the formula used to determine how much the federal government pays for Medicaid for each state.

However, Johnson’s promise to entertain these changes runs into commitments previously made to other factions of his conference, having previously ruled out changes to the FMAP rate in a bid to win over moderates.

Promises, so many promises. And such little room to maneuver.

Johnson’s biggest problem, of course, is that Republicans won such a small majority in 2024, giving him basically no cushion: assuming full attendance and unified Democratic opposition, Johnson can only afford three Republican defections on tough votes. That requires keeping a lot of very different members — from the most moderate to the most conservative — happy at the same time.

But another problem for the speaker is that so many of those members don’t appear to trust him, partially because he has made contradictory promises to various groups of them, promises he can’t possibly keep.

According to Politico, Johnson reportedly promised conservatives in April that the final bill will cut at least $1.5 trillion in federal spending, and even said that they could oust him from the speakership if he doesn’t keep his end of the bargain.

At the same time, two House Republicans told the Wall Street Journal, Johnson gave moderates the impression in a February meeting that “the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts wasn’t a real number and that the Senate would ultimately change it.” (Johnson doesn’t appear to have made the promise explicitly; one member described it as a “wink and nod.” When confronted on it by conservatives, the speaker said he was being taken out of context.)

Now, as the party nears the finish line, his conflicting promises are collapsing in on themselves — if he moves an inch to the right, he risks losing the middle; if he moves to the center, he risks losing the right — and it’s all happening in an environment where House Republicans harbor almost no trust for their fellow party members.

This is a similar dynamic as the one that ultimately felled Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who lost the trust of several different party factions and who presided over a toxic leadership team where he and his No. 2 viewed each other with mutual suspicion.

Johnson has made an enemy out of a different member of leadership, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who reportedly blames Johnson for the fact that her nomination to become UN Ambassador had to be withdrawn, and feels he hasn’t kept the promises he made to her when she was forced to return to the House.

Johnson’s trust deficit is coming home to roost as he attempts to pass the second Trump administration’s signature piece of legislation. “The tensions, which started in the restive conservative wing of the party last year, have now spread more broadly, according to more than 20 House Republicans who recounted episodes or experiences that have led them to be skeptical of what Johnson says,” according to the Journal.

“After a meeting with the [Congressional Budget Office] this morning, it’s clear we don’t know the true cost of this bill or whether it adheres to the Budget blueprint,” Brecheen wrote on Friday. “We have a duty to know the true cost of this legislation before advancing it. If we are to operate in truth, we must have true numbers—even if that means taking some more time to obtain that truth.”

In addition to the biggest promise, over spending cuts, there are plenty of smaller commitments that Johnson made that he’ll now have to navigate. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), another conservative, was mollified when her provision to strip non-citizens of access to food stamps was added to the bill at the last minute; however, according to Politico, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) says he was promised such a provision would not be included in the package.

Conservatives want FMAP changes, which Johnson already indicated to moderates were off the table. Moderates thought some Inflation Reduction Act tax credits would be maintained, while conservatives want them gutted completely. A group of blue-state Republicans want the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap increased, which would increase the bill’s deficit impact, which is already too high for conservatives.

“I’m done with smoke and mirrors,” Norman said after his Friday “no” vote, representing how many Republican members — across the ideological spectrum — feel about the current process.

And that’s to say nothing of how previous disputes could derail the megabill: Stefanik, for instance, voted against the 2017 tax cuts package because she oppose the SALT deduction cap it imposed; the UN flap has bought little goodwill from her towards Johnson.

This is dangerous territory for a congressional leader to be operating in, but it isn’t necessarily new.

Consider this passage from a 2021 CNN story about then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who similarly found herself facing a trust deficit… as she labored for months to pass a major package… relying on calls from the president to move her members:

Several say they simply decided she hadn’t been an honest broker for them, and that they ultimately voted yes not for anything she did but because of a last-minute call from Biden in which he said if they didn’t vote yes, the whole Build Back Better agenda would lose its momentum and he’d have to move on.

The difference was that if Pelosi wasn’t always loved or trusted, at least she was feared. Mike Johnson, who wasn’t even in Washington before the dawn of the Trump era, cannot say the same.

The GOP speaker’s balancing act will be tested this week. Republicans have scheduled a meeting at 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning for the Rules Committee to advance the package. Then, it’s on the House floor.

But Johnson’s challenging road won’t end there. The Senate is poised to make big changes to the reconciliation bill, from the spending to the tax credits to the Medicaid changes.

Of course, that’s exactly what Johnson has promised some of his members: that they don’t need to worry about the spending cuts in the bill they’re voting on this week, because the Senate will change it anyway. To other members, who support the spending cuts, that would cross a dangerous red line: they say they won’t support the Senate’s amended version if their cuts are taken out.

Johnson is likely to keep making every promise he can until the very last vote, continually kicking the can down the road and postponing the point when he’ll have to face up to all his many commitments.

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• President Donald Trump is set to speak on the phone separately with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky today as he continues to pursue a ceasefire between the two countries. (Politico)

• VP JD Vance was considering traveling to Israel this week after Trump snubbed the country on a Mideast tour last week. But he decided against it “because he didn’t want his trip to suggest the Trump administration endorsed the Israeli decision” to expand its military operations in Gaza. (Axios)

• Financial markets were rattled by the U.S.’ loss of its last triple-A credit rating. (NYT)