House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.) startled reporters in the corridor of the Cannon House Office Building at around 10 o’clock on a Sunday night.
The top Republican in the House was quietly visiting the House Budget Committee in the days leading up to their second meeting to discuss President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Four budget hawks opposed sending the bill to the entire House for consideration, meaning the May 16 meeting ended in failure.
In the vote to reject the budget, that’s when the real argument began. “We needed to make the provisions better,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told AWN Digital, explaining why he and the others did what they did.
This was our chance to craft a law that was better than the last one. Because of it, we were able to put a halt to the budget and secure some compromises. There wasn’t much of a rift when it got to the Rules Committee.
Little happened throughout the rest of the committee meeting; the only notable event was the Democrats’ objections to the measure. Johnson then made one more appearance, signaling that the agreement was completed.
“I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight,” said Johnson.
Legislation is moving along precisely along party lines, proving his point.
According to AWN Digital’s sources, conservatives were waiting for the House Rules Committee to decide on whether or not to send the measure to the entire house in order to implement a manager’s amendment, a tool with extensive flexibility to alter legislation.
Before most measures are put to a vote by the whole House, they must pass the House Rules Committee. On the morning of May 20, Trump personally visited Capitol Hill to encourage Republicans to support the package.
At the end of the May 21st, House leaders informed Republicans that they would most likely vote shortly after the House Rules Committee met, sending another indication of confidence. But that meeting alone had already wasted hours, starting at little after 1 a.m. on May 21 and ending with a vote on Trump’s tax plan shortly after 2:30 a.m. on May 22. Democrats attempted to prolong the process by forcing votes on more than 500 amendments, most of which were symbolic, making it difficult for members and reporters to remain awake.
During the night, negotiations with GOP defectors deteriorated.
Minutes after their meeting with Johnson, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) convened an unannounced news conference.
“The leadership’s going to have to figure out where to go from here,” he added. I believe we can see a way ahead…Doing this this week is doubtful, in my opinion. It’s within my realm of belief that we could finish in ten days. However, the decision rests with the leadership.
While a White House official refuted Harris’ claim that the Freedom Caucus had made a “deal” with the administration, the senator nonetheless made the claim. “The White House presented HFC with policy options that the administration can live with, provided they can get the votes,” according to the source.
But a number of the budget hawks had their worries allayed by the manager’s revision, which was eventually released shortly after 11 p.m. on May 21.
In addition to expediting the implementation of Medicaid work requirements and providing more funds to states that chose not to expand Medicaid under the ACA, it also provided further tax relief for gun owners.
According to Norman, when the measure reached the upper chamber, a few of conservative senators promised the House Freedom Caucus members that they would push for significant expenditure cuts.
“It was our hope that the Senate would come back and even make the cuts deeper, so that the deficit could be cut,” said Norman.
But the changes did nothing to assuage everyone’s fears. Only Republican Chip Roy of Texas, who serves as the chair of the Freedom Caucus Policy, failed to attend the crucial vote that took place around three hours following the amendment’s distribution. Roy is a member of the House Rules Committee.
Roy was informed by AWN Digital that he was “actually reading the bill…” when they were asked via text message why he did not participate in the voting.
However, it was approved by a vote of 8 to 4, which led House leaders to issue a warning to their members, indicating that they would have to return for a series of discussions and votes that would continue all night. Once again, Democratic leaders sought to postpone the proceedings, realizing they would be entirely marginalized if Republicans had sufficient support.
Lawmakers on the left were alerted in a whip letter that “House Republicans are planning to finish debate and vote on final passage of H.R. 1 late tonight.” The information was received by AWN Digital.
According to the notification, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) will call for a vote to adjourn the House, and “additional procedural votes are expected.”
Aside from the main floor, the speaker had set up a separate area with refreshments for members to wait out the lengthy night’s events, with the goal of keeping Republicans close by. Additional Republicans were gathered in the chamber across the hall, where the House Appropriations Committee met, smoking cigars and enjoying other refreshments. Legislators, who were looking worse by the minute, moved between the two chambers, their breath carrying the odor of tobacco smoke.
AWN Digital received messages from other MPs who were concerned about their own sleep schedules and wanted to know when the final vote was likely to happen. In the meanwhile, AWN Digital saw that Harris and Roy were heading away from the chaos on the House floor and towards the far more peaceful Longworth House Office Building.
Before the final vote, they both stated they were going to have more talks with personnel at the White House.
“The manager’s amendment gets us a little closer, but we’re still in discussions with the executive branch to see whether we can achieve the objectives that we seek, which is support the president’s goals on waste fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid and, you know, making sure that we’ve got all we can out of the Inflation Reduction Act,” he added.
In an interview, Roy expressed his desire for Republicans to take a harder stance against the states that took advantage of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. At the time, he also gave the impression that White House officials had hinted at more Medicaid change.
“The speaker alluded to this afternoon…that there are things in the executive space, executive actions, that we think could take care of some of the concerns that we were having about — again, it’s not what we want, but it does ameliorate some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion front,” said Roy.
For comment, AWN Digital contacted the speaker’s office and the White House.
It seemed like enough had been done to win Roy over when the time arrived for the final vote. However, Harris cast her vote as “present.”
Neither of them agreed to be interviewed for this piece.
Two Republicans, Ohio’s Warren Davidson and Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, who had been Johnson’s longtime opponent, defected in the final vote.
I support many aspects of the measure, but passing the buck to another entity does not reduce expenditure. This measure now increases deficits, which is important. Our current Congress is the only one over which we have any say. Therefore, this massive deficit proposal has my full disapproval. Davidson wrote “no” on X right before the vote started.
Even though they didn’t make it to the final vote, two additional Republicans, Andrew Garbarino of New York and David Schweikert of Arizona, both claimed they would have supported passing the measure had they been awake.
The final tally was 215-214, and Republicans celebrated with raucous applause as they knew they had the win in the bag.
No one in the media or on the Democratic side has ever given House Republicans a chance to pass this bill. Their faith in our ability to implement President Trump’s America First program was severely lacking. But this one is significant. This time around, they were incorrect,” Johnson stated at a news conference following the vote.
Next week, the Senate is slated to review the measure, and senators are already giving signs that they are prepared to make modifications.
“I encourage our Senate colleagues to think of this as a one-team effort as we have, and to modify this as little as possible, because it will make it easier for us to get it over the line ultimately, and finish and get it to the president’s desk by July fourth,” said Johnson.
