Congress

House Republicans no closer to a deal on ‘Reconciliation 3.0’

Published

2 hours ago

June 24, 2026

House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of President Donald Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short.

Trump announced Wednesday he would not sign a major housing affordability measure until Congress passes the so-called SAVE America Act, which Speaker Mike Johnson and members of his senior leadership tried to leverage during their meeting later that same morning with Republicans on the House Budget Committee.

According to four people with direct knowledge of the closed-door discussions, however, fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution — necessary to unlock the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process — unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a key Budget Committee Republican, told reporters as he left the meeting that he would vote against any budget blueprint that is not fully paid for in current savings “dollar for dollar” and “year for year.”

And Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), another Budget Committee member, said that while the committees instructed to contribute policies to the reconciliation bill could include Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, it’s “too early” to talk about what will be in the budget resolution or any timeline for consideration.

It essentially guarantees that House Republicans will fail to meet an ambitious deadline of adopting a budget resolution before the July 4 holiday, let alone passing a reconciliation bill ahead of the monthlong August recess.

A failure to proceed would be a blow to Republicans who have argued there are few other opportunities to notch conservative wins in advance of the midterms — not to mention deliver on Trump demands, from the SAVE America Act to funding his ongoing military operation in the Middle East.

Johnson has remained bullish that Republicans will be able to move ahead on “Reconciliation 3.0” — follow-ups to last summer’s tax and spending megabill and the immigration enforcement bill Congress cleared earlier this month.

He is specifically floating the possibility that Republicans could, in that next reconciliation bill, create a grant program providing money to states to encourage the adoption of REAL ID requirements in order to vote.

Johnson said he made this case directly to Trump, too, before the president ultimately canceled his scheduled ceremonial signing of the landmark housing package in protest over the lack of Hill momentum on the elections bill.

“House Republicans will pull together a reconciliation bill … that will have that,” Johnson told reporters of the grant program Wednesday. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

But members who attended the meeting Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act, which has passed the House but does not have the support to move forward in the Senate.

Roy, for instance, said the grant program is “not the SAVE America Act.”

Still, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) mirrored Johnson’s optimism Wednesday, saying he believed House Republicans could come to an agreement on viable offsets by the end of this week and perhaps on what policies to include by the end of next.

There are enough fraud-tackling initiatives that could cover the cost of any “Reconciliation 3.0” legislation in full, Arrington insisted, while also doubting the entire package would be paid for given intraparty disagreements about how deep to cut into social safety net programs.

“We know the money’s there. The question is, do we have the political will as a conference to do those things,” Arrington said. “We need everybody on the same page.”

There are other major policy disagreements, too, that show few signs of being quickly resolved.

After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed members of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday afternoon of the Pentagon’s $350 billion funding request as part of another reconciliation bill, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested he would support such a cash infusion — but wanted the administration to agree to replace the brigade in Eastern Europe.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), meanwhile, has said he wants the funding to be audited before agreeing to vote for it.

Some Republicans are pushing for defunding Planned Parenthood to be a part of any future reconciliation package, too — a politically charged demand for vulnerable incumbents to swallow.

“When we have something, I’ll start calculating the odds, but so far they haven’t put anything together,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview this week. “It’s all a pretty vague concept.”

Congress

GOP hard-liners outline anti-abortion, military funding demands for party-line bill

Published

7 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday outlining its demands for a third reconciliation bill, including extending a prohibition on federal funding for abortion providers and immediately paying for any new spending.

“This is our last and best chance to prove they were right to send us here to fight for them,” the House Freedom Caucus Board of Directors wrote in the letter, referring to U.S. voters who gave the GOP control of both chambers this Congress. “That is why any Reconciliation 3.0 bill must be focused on wins for the American people.”

The letter comes as House Republicans have started to move ahead on another party-line package, though without consensus on the details of what the legislation will actually include. The conference is considering provisions to fund the war in Iran alongside other policies related to affordability and health care. The bill is also expected to tackle alleged fraud in government programs as one way to offset the costs.

Several members of the conservative hard-liner group in recent weeks have warned they would only support the upcoming bill if any new spending included in it is fully paid for. Some members, like Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, have also said the pay-fors need to be immediate — not several years in the future.

In the letter, the members also told Johnson the next bill should eliminate clean energy tax credits — something they pushed for in the first reconciliation bill last year. The lawmakers are also asking for reforms to health care, the removal of certain firearm-related taxes and “responsible short-term funding for key government personnel and services” to prevent another government shutdown ahead of the midterms.

With the military funding portion of the reconciliation bill, the members requested the package should be used to “modernize our military and deliver clear America First national security priorities.”

“Together with President Trump, we must use our unified Republican majorities to advance a bold, America First agenda,” the members wrote in the letter. “We control the field — we cannot afford to leave any points on the board in reconciliation. We stand ready to work with you to accomplish this goal.”

Congress

Johnson to meet with Trump in last-ditch bid to unstick House floor

Published

52 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican leaders are scrambling to regain control of the House after GOP hard-liners effectively shut down the floor Wednesday over their demands that the Senate pass a stalled elections overhaul bill.

Speaker Mike Johnson is set to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday morning in an effort to try and find a way out of the mess, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the private plans.

Johnson is planning to keep the House in session Thursday and have members vote on at least one bipartisan bill that has already been teed up for the floor as he tries to convince the president to help end the hard-liners’ blockade.

GOP leaders hoped to put several additional bills up for a vote this week, including a pair of fiscal 2027 spending measures. But the group of MAGA loyalists, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, is insisting no legislation can pass until the SAVE America Act clears the Senate.

If Johnson can’t enlist Trump to break the impasse, the House will leave for the week, the four people said.

A breakthrough won’t be easy. The president is just as animated about the SAVE America Act as the hard-liners holding up the House floor. He abruptly canceled a planned bill-signing for landmark bipartisan housing legislation Wednesday morning, just hours before it was scheduled to take place in the Capitol with Johnson and other GOP leaders, citing the need to prioritize the elections bill.

Johnson is expected to pitch Trump on a plan to enact a watered-down version of the SAVE America Act’s proof-of-citizenship requirement by including a grant program to encourage adoption of voter ID laws in a long-shot plan to pass a new party-line policy bill this year.

But that is only a fraction of what Trump wants the Republican Congress to get done this year, and the GOP hard-liners are already panning Johnson’s plan as insufficient.

Congress

A frustrated Trump unloads on Senate Republicans behind closed doors

Published

2 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans hoped to use a closed-door lunch to clear the air with President Donald Trump. Instead, the president vented his frustrations with the senators for more than an hour, leaving them no closer to detente.

The meeting came at an explosive moment, with GOP lawmakers increasingly frustrated by Trump’s mercurial treatment of congressional Republican priorities. Just hours before arriving on Capitol Hill, Trump delivered his latest rug-pull — announcing he would refuse to sign a major housing bill that leaders were already touting after big bipartisan majorities passed it this week.

But senators said Trump arrived determined to prosecute his internal grudges against the Republican lawmakers who have opposed him at times — particularly those who have expressed misgivings about the Iran war and who are refusing to comply with the president’s demands for swift passage of a controversial elections bill.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described Trump as “mad as a murder hornet” about the Iran vote, while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) described the scene as “very much like a hospital board meeting, when a bunch of doctors are yelling at each other.”

Marshall added that “at the end of the day, we’ll figure out a way to get along.”

Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the lunch “very intense.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), deploying some go-to congressional lingo for heated encounters, called it “spirited,” “frank” and “candid.”

Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) sparred at length over the Iran war, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private interaction. Trump also railed over Tuesday’s successful war powers vote, lambasting Cassidy and three other GOP senators who voted for the resolution.

Cassidy acknowledged the two had a heated exchange to reporters after the lunch. After Trump questioned why Republicans would vote against him on the war, Cassidy said he told the president that the conflict was not going as well as senators were being told.

“The president said something negative about me. I received it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know, and I’m not going to be bullied,” said Cassidy, who recently lost his campaign for renomination after Trump endorsed against him.

Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) also confirmed the exchange between Trump and Cassidy. He said the two “harbor bad feelings” and urged them both to move on.

The meeting also failed to reveal a way forward on Trump’s No. 1 priority, the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.

Trump cited the need to pass the legislation in his stunning decision Wednesday morning to cancel a signing ceremony for the long-stalled housing bill. A rostrum had been erected in Statuary Hall for the occasion, and House GOP leaders were promoting its benefits at a news conference when the presidential U-turn occurred.

Senators said Trump largely reiterated his publicly stated positions on the housing bill, the GOP election bill and his demand that they eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

“He believes that the SAVE America act ought to be in front of the housing bill,” Justice said.

Sen. Rand Paul said there had been “a thorough airing” of the elections bill during the meeting, but added it’s unclear “if there is a solution.”

The announcement only served to further exasperate the Senate GOP ahead of the lunch, which had been arranged by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a MAGA loyalist who acted without the foreknowledge of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Underscoring the mood going into the meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, “I would advise them to only use plastic utensils today.”

Republicans had hoped the housing bill would give them a long-sought legislative victory that would get the party on the same page and give them a foothold to argue that they are responding to Americans’ affordability concerns heading into the midterms.

Instead, Trump’s surprise declaration, which appeared to catch even some of his own staff off guard, became the latest curveball for Senate Republicans — following a surprise request for White House ballroom security funding and the announcement of a Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that overshadowed and delayed passage of a GOP immigration enforcement bill.

Since then, Trump also has thrown a key surveillance program into limbo and upended the confirmation plans for his own nominee for director of national intelligence.

Most persistently, he has fixated on Senate Republicans passing the SAVE America Act — including by eliminating the filibuster — even though Thune and other GOP senators have said repeatedly that there aren’t the votes to do that.

“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president is doing right now and it’s the Democrat party,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. ”And we’ve got to get our act together and stop surprising people and stop having conflicting messages.”