{"id":10285,"date":"2025-06-14T14:17:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T14:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/an-old-capitol-hill-troublemaker-is-trying-to-clinch-a-megabill-deal\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T14:17:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T14:17:48","slug":"an-old-capitol-hill-troublemaker-is-trying-to-clinch-a-megabill-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/an-old-capitol-hill-troublemaker-is-trying-to-clinch-a-megabill-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"An old Capitol Hill troublemaker is trying to clinch a megabill deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It\u2019s a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners \u2014 and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all.<\/p>\n

The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he\u2019s re-emerged as a behind-the-scenes sounding board for Republican hard-liners, who view him as an informal conduit with the White House as they try to shape the president’s \u201cbig, beautiful bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just the latest turn for Meadows, who played a central role in ousting John Boehner as speaker, then served as conservative gadfly in Paul Ryan\u2019s House GOP before leaving for the White House. He was at Trump\u2019s side through 2020 until the ignominious end of his first term.<\/p>\n

His most recent headlines have concerned his role in the \u201cstop the steal\u201d efforts that followed the 2020 election and his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Reports of an immunity deal and his testimony to a federal grand jury made him persona non grata in some MAGA circles.<\/p>\n

But Meadows, who declined to comment for this story, has maintained a foothold on the hard right as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute \u2014 a conservative think tank in Washington headed by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It\u2019s where the current iteration of the House Freedom Caucus, which Meadows once led, huddles for its weekly meetings, and he keeps in frequent touch with the group\u2019s members.<\/p>\n

Those conversations have heated up in recent weeks as the GOP megabill has moved to the top of the Capitol Hill agenda.<\/p>\n

This past Tuesday evening, for instance, Meadows ventured into the Capitol complex to meet with a small cadre of hard-liners from both chambers: GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

The meeting in Lee\u2019s office, which was first reported by POLITICO<\/a>, focused on how the right flank could hang onto some of its biggest priorities in the House version of the megabill, while trying to eke out some new wins in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just trying to figure out how to thread the needle here,\u201d Johnson said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Added Scott, \u201cMark is trying to help get a deal done.\u201d<\/p>\n

All five sitting lawmakers who attended the Tuesday evening meeting have threatened to oppose Trump\u2019s domestic-policy package if it doesn\u2019t meet their demands, a strategy Meadows is no stranger to.<\/p>\n

He played a key role, for instance, in shaping the first attempt at major party-line legislation in Trump\u2019s first term \u2014 a 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He pushed as Freedom Caucus chair to make the bill much more aggressive in undoing the 2010 law\u2019s mandates.<\/p>\n

Meadows helped broker deals that ultimately got a bill through the House, but it went too far for key senators, and the effort fizzled.<\/p>\n

Now, according to Republicans who have spoken with him, Meadows has been helpful in brainstorming ideas for hard-liners as they seek to force as many of their demands into the bill as possible. He\u2019s also viewed by others as eager to stay in the mix on Capitol Hill \u2014 akin to a sort of MAGA Zelig who likes to be where the action is.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to be involved,\u201d said one House Republican, who was skeptical that Meadows is serving a GOP interest larger than himself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether Meadows\u2019 role has been blessed by the White House, where opinions about \u201cThe Chief\u2019s Chief\u201d \u2014 as Meadows titled his memoir<\/a> \u2014 vary widely. Administration officials are aware of Meadows\u2019 quiet shuttle diplomacy in the name of the president’s signature policy item. Even if the Trump administration hasn\u2019t formally sanctioned his role, GOP lawmakers see him as someone who still has the ear of the president and his advisors.<\/p>\n

Scott noted that Meadows has \u201ca good working relationship with the White House.\u201d Johnson said it was his impression that Meadows is still actively engaged with the administration, even though he\u2019s technically out of government.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my understanding that President Trump\u2019s former chiefs stay in touch with him,\u201d Johnson said, adding that Meadows is trying to play a \u201chelpful role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meadows grew so loyal at one point that Trump publicly lauded Meadows<\/a> during a 2020 rally for physically staying by his side when he contracted Covid. But after Trump lost the election and amid the post-Jan. 6 flurry of congressional and federal investigations, the president and some top MAGA figures increasingly saw Meadows as an unreliable ally given reports about a possible federal immunity deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people would make [an immunity] deal, but they are weaklings and cowards,\u201d Trump wrote in 2023<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Meadows was never charged federally and Trump\u2019s indictment on conspiracy changes related to the 2020 election never went to trial. Then, after Trump\u2019s re-election, Meadows assumed his quiet role as power broker.<\/p>\n

Meadows has popped up in the House at several big moments in recent months. He huddled with hard-liners and House GOP leaders separately during speaker election fights, including when a small group of conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy in October 2023.<\/p>\n

He emerged from Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s office just a few days before Trump\u2019s inauguration before being spotted on the House side of the Capitol multiple times later in the spring. Asked if he was working on Trump\u2019s behalf, Meadows replied: \u201cOh no, I\u2019m just here for a brief meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He headed into the speaker\u2019s office<\/a> late last month hours before the Louisiana Republican pulled off what many believed to be impossible \u2014 passing the House version of the megabill with the support of every Freedom Caucus member, save Chair Andy Harris of Maryland, who voted present.<\/p>\n

Unlike with Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy, Meadows is more ideologically aligned with Mike Johnson. The two men were both part of a group of House Republicans who took on the role of Trump\u2019s unofficial defenders during his first Senate impeachment trial, and Johnson \u2014 while never a member \u2014 has long had close ties to the Freedom Caucus, including when Meadows chaired the group.<\/p>\n

Now members of the Freedom Caucus are still in regular contact with Meadows, and the House GOP is studded with old Meadows allies, such as fellow HFC co-founder and current Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who estimated he still talks to Meadows once a week. Many of them see his low-key involvement in megabill talks as being in line with his general approach.<\/p>\n

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who said he sees Meadows regularly, said he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Meadows was \u201cfacilitating\u201d conversations, summing up his general approach as \u201clike, how do you get this done?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachael Bade contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners \u2014 and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all. The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}