President Trump headed to Capitol Hill Tuesday to push squabbling Republican members of Congress in particular person to put aside variations and go his sprawling price range invoice together with deep cuts in spending and taxes.
Insisting the GOP is unified, Trump promised to place the laborious promote on warring factions of GOP lawmakers who’re nonetheless haggling over key parts of his “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“We have a tremendously unified party. I don’t think we’ve ever had a party like this,” Trump stated earlier than heading right into a face-to-face assembly with lawmakers. “There are some people who want a couple of things …that they’re not going to get.”
“We gotta get it done,” he added.
President Donald Trump arrives with Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson for a Home Republican assembly on the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures)
Standing alongside a grinning Home Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump stated the deep spending cuts within the invoice don’t quantity to precise adjustments within the social security internet applications, despite the fact that they might value tens of thousands and thousands of People the advantages they rely on.
“We’re cutting three things: waste fraud and abuse,” Trump stated. “We’re not changing Medicaid. We’re not changing Medicare. And we’re not changing Social Security.”
Trump slapped down a small group of blue state Republican lawmakers, largely from the New York suburbs, who’re pushing for a giant enhance within the deduction for state and native taxes, or SALT.
He accused these GOP lawmakers of appearing as little greater than a fig leaf for Democratic state leaders who’ve raised taxes and spending increased than purple states.
“The biggest beneficiary, if we do that, are governors from New York, Illinois and California,” stated Trump, successfully flip-flopping on his vow to lift the SALT cap throughout a presidential marketing campaign rally on Lengthy Island. “We’re going to be explaining that these are all very blue states.”
Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson arrives for a Home Republican assembly on the U.S. Capitol on Might 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures)
Republicans are searching for to push the invoice by means of the Home, the place the GOP has a slender seven-vote majority, earlier than Memorial Day.
It could then head to the Senate, which must go the equivalent invoice to skirt a Democratic filibuster by means of price range reconciliation.
The invoice extends Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts and contains different revenue-cutting goodies like no taxes on ideas, additional time and Social Safety, with a possible price ticket of greater than $4.5 trillion.
Regardless of Trump’s declare, it additionally contains draconian cuts to federal applications, particularly the Medicaid program that gives well being protection to about 70 million largely lower-income and disabled People.
Though Republicans overwhelmingly assist Trump, they’re bitterly divided into factions together with fiscal hawks demanding far deeper cuts and moderates who concern voters will punish them in the event that they minimize advantages an excessive amount of.
The SALT Republicans together with Rep. Mike Lawler and Lengthy Island’s Rep. Nick Lalota have already rejected Johnson’s supply to extend the annual cap on SALT to $30,000 from the present $10,000, however he has refused to budge to date.
Trump reportedly referred to as out Lawler by title on the closed-door assembly, instructing the Westchester County lawmaker to cease haggling over SALT.
“End it, Mike. Just end it,” Trump stated, CNN reported.
