DORAL, Florida — President Donald Trump’s call for congressional action on an updated elections overhaul is facing serious doubts from senior House Republicans who aren’t convinced it can pass the chamber a third time.

Trump’s demand for a near-total ban on mail voting, in particular, remains an obstacle. When GOP leaders put a version of the SAVE America Act on the House floor last month, they left out that provision, bowing to some Republicans’ internal concerns.

Those dynamics have not changed, according to four people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations, even after Trump told Speaker Mike Johnson at the House Republican policy retreat Monday to draft a new version of the bill with the mail voting provision and other additions.

Several members pressed Johnson on the SAVE America Act during a question-and-answer session behind closed doors Tuesday morning. But he remained noncommittal about how Congress would pass it, according to three people in the room, and noted Senate Majority Leader John Thune has raised concerns about the legislation tying up the other chamber.

Asked if the House could pass a third version of the legislation, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview that Republicans would “be talking about that” during their closed-door meetings.

“I mean, obviously we passed the SAVE America Act, which is all of the things — you know, prove citizenship, show ID to vote — that’s over in the Senate, and there’s a lot of momentum building to get the Senate to move that bill to the president’s desk,” Scalise said.

“So I know that momentum is going to keep building,” he added. “Obviously, we’re talking these next few days about the remaining things we’re going to do this year.”

DORAL, Florida — “Fraud prevention” in federal and state safety-net programs should be the main target of a new Republican reconciliation bill, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said in an interview Tuesday where he also called for reviving Medicaid spending cuts provisions that fell out of last year’s GOP megabill.

“The whole kit and caboodle of welfare is $1.6 trillion in our budget,” Arrington said on the sidelines of the House Republican policy retreat. “But it’s also not just welfare — it’s programs across the federal government that states need to be responsible [for].”

Arrington said Republicans needed to act after federal officials identified potentially billions of dollars of potential benefits fraud in Minnesota. But the suggestion of additional cuts to safety-net programs comes as House Republicans vulnerable in the upcoming midterms deal with the political fallout of the Medicaid and food-aid cuts enacted last year.

“I’m going to listen to everything,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican battling to keep a district that could be redrawn in Democrats’ favor. “I think we need to be very thoughtful about what we do and how we go about doing that.”

Arrington said he wanted to revisit several proposals to reduce Medicaid spending that did not end up complying with strict Senate rules for a filibuster-skirting budget package. He suggested Senate Republicans didn’t spend “a lot of time” last year reworking them to pass muster.

Arrington also said he wants to identify Pentagon spending cuts that would offset new investments President Donald Trump wants for the military — something that will likely trigger pushback from GOP defense hawks.

“I think there’s certainly waste at the Pentagon,” he said. “I think the president and his team want to retool it, modernize it, but there’s also going to be a capital investment associated with it. I just want to make sure that whatever we’re spending, we’re offsetting.”

While Speaker Mike Johnson has repeatedly promised GOP hard-liners he will push for a new reconciliation bill, he continues to face serious internal doubts — especially after Trump failed to mention it once in a nearly hourlong address to Republican lawmakers Monday.

A senior House Republican, granted anonymity to candidly discuss internal conversations, said lawmakers shouldn’t “kill themselves” to do one given Trump’s lack of interest. And a key committee chair remains publicly skeptical of the push, noting Tuesday the House GOP majority is even thinner than it was in July, when the megabill passed.

“I’d love to do a second reconciliation bill, but I’d also love to be Brad Pitt,” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “It’s never going to happen.”

President Donald Trump’s demand that Congress pass an expanded version of the SAVE America Act is creating headaches for both chambers.

The president told House Republicans on Monday the sweeping GOP elections overhaul bill — with several key add-ons — should be their “No. 1 priority.” It’s upending their plans to discuss other premidterms priorities during the retreat Tuesday — and raising eyebrows among some senators back in Washington.

— How it’s playing in Doral: The House has passed two versions of the GOP elections bill already, but now the president wants to tack on limits to mail voting, a ban on transgender surgeries for minors and a prohibition on transgender women participating in women’s sports.

GOP leaders now have to drum up support from members reluctant to dive into the culture war of transgender politics when they’d prefer to focus on affordability. And the mail voting provision was left off the package last time for a reason.

Committee chairs will brief members Tuesday on their legislative priorities, including the possibility of a new reconciliation bill this year. But Trump made no mention of that possibility during his remarks Monday, which does not bode well for those seeking a second megabill.

Elected Republican leaders will then huddle privately at 4 p.m. to discuss paths forward. Expect Trump’s SAVE America demands to be a big part of the conversation.

The GOP leaders will also discuss how to pass a housing affordability package — though that, too, doesn’t appear to be a priority for Trump, who said Monday that Americans are demanding the election bill and “don’t talk about housing.”

— More trouble for Thune: Trump’s ultimatum further complicates matters in the Senate, where there the legislation is on the rocks even without the president’s new demands.

Several Republican senators signaled Monday they aren’t behind the president’s call to significantly limit mail-in ballots, touting the success of the practice in their own states.

“I don’t want the federal government telling me that I can’t have mail-in voting or absentee ballot voting,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters. “There’s nothing wrong with mail-in voting if you have the right standards in place.”

Trump also kept pressing on the “talking filibuster,” keeping that internal battle front and center for Majority Leader John Thune, who delivered a public reality check on the “complicated and risky” idea Monday.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), in a sign of how desperate some Republicans are to avoid a bruising internal filibuster fight, floated passing the SAVE America Act through reconciliation Monday, despite the lack of a clear budget connection.

“We have some clever wordsmiths,” Kennedy said.

What else we’re watching: 

— Immigration policy hearings: Two Senate hearings Tuesday will put a spotlight on key immigration policy debates — birthright citizenship and so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will host a 10:30 a.m. hearing on jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement; witnesses will include Chad Wolf, Trump’s former acting DHS secretary.

A Senate Judiciary panel will then hold a 2:30 p.m. hearing on “Protecting American Citizenship” as the Supreme Court mulls whether to void Trump’s effort to end automatic birthright citizenship for those born in the U.S.

— Race to replace MTG: It’s Election Day to fill the seat of Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose retirement from Congress in January narrowed an already thin Republican House majority. The bad news for the GOP: The race might drag on another month.

Seventeen candidates are on the ballot, including 12 Republicans. And because so many candidates filed, it’s possible no one emerges with the 50 percent required to win, leaving the seat open until after the potential April 7 runoff.

Hailey Fuchs and Andrew Howard contributed to this report.