Congress
How Mike Johnson doused a GOP dumpster fire
Speaker Mike Johnson bet it all on “one big, beautiful bill.” With a heavy assist from President Donald Trump in the final hours, he delivered.
The bill’s House passage early Thursday morning was at least temporary vindication for a series of strategic decisions championed by the Louisiana Republican — chiefly, that packaging a massive suite of tax cuts together with other sundry GOP priorities would make it easier to move ambitious legislation with his tiny governing majority.
Johnson had to battle for months with factions of his own conference, and with the Senate, at multiple key junctures. But he plowed through and moved a host of Trump’s campaign promises closer to the president’s desk after a final flurry of negotiations and a rare, overnight session on the House floor.
“There was a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart,” Johnson told reporters shortly after the vote, adding he visited the House chapel to pray on it.
In essence, Johnson spent months fighting fires. His job, in conjunction with other GOP leaders, was to manage flare-up after flare-up as various groups inside the House ranks battled over trillions in tax cuts and politically explosive reductions to social safety-net spending.
Johnson might not have succeeded in putting out every blaze, but he kept them from growing into a conflagration that even Trump couldn’t extinguish. He’ll probably have to do it again later this year after the Senate sends back revisions to the megabill.
The outlook for the legislation looked bleak throughout the past week, as various bands of holdouts resisted coming aboard.
On Wednesday night, for instance, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) — a conservative hard-liner — suggested the bill would potentially “have to fail” on the floor for leaders to realize it should be reworked. Moderate Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) said he was “not happy” with changes the conservatives had secured to more quickly eliminate clean-energy tax credits he’d been working to defend.
Neither ended up voting for the bill. Davidson was one of two House Republicans who voted “no” Thursday, and Garbarino missed the vote.
But Johnson had spent the week peeling off almost every other member — moving methodically between holdout groups, patiently working through a seemingly endless litany of issues.
On Monday night, after tentatively approving some key demands from fiscal hawks who had delayed a key Budget Committee vote, Johnson faced ire from the other side of the conference in a closed-door meeting.
Several Republicans in the Main Street Caucus told Johnson they were frustrated that he was once again appearing to entertain politically explosive cuts to Medicaid — cutting the federal share of funding to states, known as FMAP — after the speaker had seemed to rule them out.
Some of the centrist-leaning Republicans in the room pressed the speaker to publicly take the proposal off the table for good this time — and send a message to the hard right not to push further.
Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), a former Trump aide, spoke up to air his own irritation with how Johnson had managed the whole megabill process.
Indeed, the speaker and his team’s tactics had grated on many GOP members. They believed he had unwisely delayed settling the biggest battles until the final hours and had given disingenuous assurances to some at-risk Republicans that the Senate would intervene and block some of the bill’s most unpalatable provisions.
Johnson jotted down notes as members spoke. A few minutes later, as he walked back to his office, he told reporters, “FMAP has not been on the table — it’s been off the table for quite some time.”
He had extinguished another fire. But it was time for Johnson to call in backup.
The next morning, Trump made a rare journey to the drab, poorly-lit Capitol basement to make his wishes clear. It was uncertain if he’d stanch the disputes or toss more fuel onto them.
The visit came just a few days after the hard-liner rebellion had blocked the bill in the Budget Committee vote over concerns that the megabill would add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
Before he even walked into the meeting, Trump appeared to be looking to stoke conflict — dismissing the hard-liners’ deeply held beliefs.
“I’m a bigger fiscal hawk — there’s nobody like me,” he told reporters alongside Johnson, in response to a question about some of the hard-right concerns.
Inside the meeting, the president took on a kind of Rodney Dangerfield persona, House Republicans said — telling barbed jokes at lawmakers’ expense.
He laced into the fiscal hawks and “SALT Republicans” pushing for the expansion of a key tax break — calling out “grandstanders” by name who sought to stand in the way of his “one big, beautiful bill.”
“He insulted several people with a great intensity,” said one bewildered House Republican, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly about private meetings and conversations.
Trump’s tongue lashings and Johnson’s hardball approach to muscling the bill through this week rattled some even long-time GOP lawmakers. It was clear there was no room for dissent.
“I could never have imagined when I started in politics that we would have this kind of a scenario,” one House Republican said of the our-way-or-the-highway approach. “But who else do we turn to, besides Johnson?”
Near the end, the speaker needed to douse one last blaze: The hard-line House Freedom Caucus was balking and pushing for concessions on Medicaid that other Republicans simply would not accept.
A White House meeting was arranged with the holdouts, and Johnson sat in with top lieutenants as Trump unleashed the fire hose — pressing Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Harris of Maryland and other hard-liners to vote for the bill.
“It was tough. There was no back and forth,” said one Republican briefed on the meeting. “He let them have it.”
Johnson returned to the Capitol triumphant. “The plan is to move forward as we expected,” he told reporters.
Roy and Harris then huddled through the night with White House officials including Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Legislative Affairs Director James Braid. The hard-liners pushed for, and said they secured, promises for executive orders to address Medicaid and other items on their wish list.
Meanwhile, as night turned to morning over the course of a nine-hour vote series, Johnson huddled one-on-one with several previously balking members on the floor.
Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, a fiscal hawk who a few days earlier had said the bill “fell short,” spoke to Johnson around 3 a.m. Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who won a key concession ending the taxation of gun silencers, sat with the speaker later in the morning.
And just before Republicans passed the massive bill a little before 7 a.m., the speaker and Miller spoke for several minutes, ending their conversation with a handshake.
Unlike several prior high-stakes votes during Johnson’s speakership and predecessor Kevin McCarthy’s, there were no dramatic scenes wrangling last-minute votes from the assembled hard-liners.
His team was confident the tough tactics had worked. “They always fold,” one senior GOP aide said.
Senate Republicans confirmed dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees Friday, just before they leave for a five-week congressional recess.
Senators voted 51-47 to approve officials at the Departments of Defense, Energy, State and other agencies.
They included David Cummins to head the Transportation Security Administration, Cameron Hamilton to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hal Duncan to be OMB deputy director and Francis Brooke to be Treasury deputy secretary. Among the group were several ambassadors, including former Rep. David Brat to be ambassador to Australia.
Senate Republicans changed the chamber’s rules last year to be able to confirm lower-level nominees as a package instead of having to hold a vote on each.
After finishing the expedited procedure Friday, Senate Republicans estimate they will only have a small number of civilian nominees awaiting confirmation.
President Donald Trump said voters may seek to punish Republicans — but not him — in the November midterm elections, as GOP lawmakers sweat that affordability concerns and the war in Iran could mean Democrats flip the House and perhaps even the Senate.
“They’re angry at Republicans,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News that aired Friday. “But they’re not angry at me. They’re not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.”
The GOP faces the prospect of heavy losses this November, as gas and grocery prices remain stubbornly high due in part to the White House’s five-month-long war in Iran. The administration’s guidance on campaign trail messaging has been “tone deaf,” House Republicans fear.
Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has tumbled since he returned to the Oval Office last year, and even his biggest supporters have grown frustrated over his Middle East war.
And with a messy, jam-packed slate of primaries now all but in the rearview mirror, Democrats are determined to go on offense. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 58 seats on its midterm target map that stretches into redder territory — while still facing an uphill climb to take the Senate.
Trump has a massive war chest at his disposal. His MAGA Inc. super PAC reached $400 million in June. The president told Punchbowl he plans to use it to “help Republicans,” but he stressed that he faces no pressure in this campaign cycle.
“I said to somebody, ‘Wait a minute, you don’t understand, I won,’” Trump said, referencing his 2024 presidential election victory. “I’m not campaigning.”
The biggest issue for Republicans this year? That Trump himself is not on the ballot, he said.
“If I don’t run, will those people go out and vote? And that’s the one thing I can’t tell, I’m going to ask them to,” he said.
The Senate’s plan to get out of town is coming together.
Majority Leader John Thune teed up a final vote on the Russia sanctions legislation for this morning, as well as a confirmation vote for dozens of nominees and a procedural step on a stopgap funding bill.
But there’s still a number of questions that need to be answered if Thune wants to adjourn for recess by the end of the day:
— BLANCHE’S FATE: President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general needs to secure at least one more vote to be confirmed before the break.
It looks like it’s all up to Sen. Bill Cassidy after Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday morning she is opposed. Thune indicated Thursday night Blanche’s fate was uncertain and that leaders were “still working to get the final vote.”
— SAVE AMERICA ACT: Thune said to expect a vote related to the SAVE America Act as well as an initial vote on a budget blueprint for a third party-line spending bill — which includes elements of Trump’s election security legislation.
The decision to hold the budget vote comes after two Republican senators, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Blue Light News Thursday they believed Sen. Mike Lee or another member of the GOP’s right flank would have otherwise forced a vote on the framework.
But as we’ve previously reported, Republicans don’t believe the budget resolution has the votes within the conference to be adopted — meaning the expected initial vote today will fail to clear a simple majority threshold.
And it’s not clear Lee or like-minded senators will be satisfied and allow for lawmakers to adjourn for recess without more action on the elections measure. The senator has made similar threats over the past year but has never followed through.
— TIME AGREEMENT: GOP leaders need to strike an agreement to finish other business, including passing the stopgap government funding bill and advancing a college sports bill.
At this point, any single senator could still object to expediting the chamber’s agenda, which would derail Thune’s goal of getting members out of town by the end of the day.
“We’ve been having these conversations with Democrats trying to figure out what’s the path,” Thune said.
“We’ll see how it goes,” he added.
What else we’re watching:
— GOP EXPECTS CRYPTO BILL DELAY: The Senate will leave for the chamber’s August recess without holding a vote on a landmark cryptocurrency bill, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Thune may still file cloture on the bill, but it likely won’t come to the floor until lawmakers return to Washington next month, two of the people said.
— COLLEGE SPORTS BILL STUMBLES: Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell’s legislation to impose new guardrails on college sports is looking increasingly unlikely to hit the floor this week. Eleven senators objected to expedited consideration of the Protect College Sports Act after Thune filed cloture earlier this week, two people familiar with discussions told Blue Light News.
— OGLES OUSTED: GOP House leaders lost an incumbent — and a perennial headache — with Rep. Andy Ogles’ primary defeat in Tennessee Thursday night. His loss to former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher represents the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week.
Jordain Carney, Mia McCarthy, Andrew Howard and Jacob Wendler contributed to this report.
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