By Olivia Beavers and Siobhan Hughes

WASHINGTON -- President Trump visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday to do what he does best: Use his bully pulpit to pressure unruly Republican lawmakers to get on board with his agenda.

In a closed-door meeting with the House Republican conference, the president was urging House Republicans to unite around his "one big beautiful" budget reconciliation bill, which will fund a series of the promises Trump made on the campaign trail including his extending his 2017 tax cuts and adding new ones, boosting border spending, repealing climate tax credits and more.

Trump's visit comes at a high-stakes moment: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) has said he wants to vote on the package as soon as Wednesday, with passage no later than the coming Memorial Day weekend. But party factions remain far apart on a series of key sticking points, from how deep to cut Medicaid spending to how high to raise the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT.

The president warned of the consequences of failure to pass his bill, noting that taxes would rise for many American households if Congress fails to extend the tax provisions from his first term and that Republican holdouts could face primary challenges.

"What Republican would vote for that? Because they wouldn't be a Republican much longer. They would be knocked out so fast," Trump said to reporters before the meeting, arguing the party is united -- except for "one or two grandstanders" -- as Johnson stood at his side.

Trump declined to weigh in on the major disputes over Medicaid and SALT. He also separately took aim at one of the House Republicans who is expected to vote against the bill, saying Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) should be "voted out of office."

Ahead of the meeting, some lawmakers warned talks were going in the wrong direction.

"It's a deficit-spending bill. It actually grows the deficit this Congress," said Rep. Warren Davidson (R., Ohio), a deficit hawk and Trump ally, who said he was currently a "no" vote. Asked if Trump could say anything to get him to change his mind, Davidson said there has to be a "plan to actually cut spending."

The bill would cut taxes by nearly $4 trillion, compared with doing nothing, while generating about $1.6 trillion in spending reductions and other deficit-reducing policies.

Trump's word is expected to have a powerful impact as conservatives seek to enact deeper changes to Medicaid, which serves 70 million low-income and disabled people, to limit the growth of the federal deficit.

The current Republican plan cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from the program over 10 years. Some budget hawks want deeper cuts and want the new rules like work requirements to kick in faster. But centrists and other Republicans warn that further cuts would hurt the party's chances of keeping the House majority in the midterm elections. On Sunday night, four conservative holdouts allowed the bill to proceed through the Budget Committee, but they said their concerns weren't fully resolved.

Some members are pressing the idea of cutting back on the share the federal government contributes to Medicaid. Johnson has repeatedly taken that idea off the table, but spending hawks say it needs to be part of the mix, citing rising budget deficits and saying that the matching rate is unfair to states that declined to expand Medicaid to cover more low-income people, as permitted by the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

A day before the president descended on the Hill, Johnson held a series of meetings with various factions. He met with the Republican Main Street Caucus, where people familiar with the meeting said he was in listening mode, making notes on a writing pad as his GOP members raised issues with Medicaid and energy tax issues, including about nuclear power.

Johnson then jetted to another meeting, largely composed of conservative House Freedom Caucus members and a group of centrists, where other people familiar with the meetings say they were trying to iron out various sticking points.

Johnson also met with the New York Republicans insisting on an increase in the SALT cap, seeking to nail down a deal with them. These SALT Republicans, however, were dismissive of the offer Johnson put forward. Rep. Mike Lawler of New York described the latest proposal as "insufficient," while heading into the meeting with Trump.

In the meeting with House Republicans, Trump indicated to SALT Republicans to take the deal that leadership has offered them, according to people in the room. He called out Lawler specifically on the matter, they said.

As Johnson scrambles to pull together the different factions, some centrists felt conservatives were hurting the deal they felt they made concessions on when it came to Medicaid.

"We negotiated in good faith, in the committees -- won some, lost some, and the committee votes it out. And then these guys want to undo it," said Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.), one of the three Republicans who represents a district won by Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. "I thought we found a good compromise, and then have it reopened up. We don't like it, and so we'll be very selective in what we support."

Write to Olivia Beavers at Olivia.Beavers@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 20, 2025 10:04 ET (14:04 GMT)

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