{"id":10630,"date":"2025-06-25T17:34:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/they-realize-im-serious-inside-ron-johnsons-megabill-talks-with-the-white-house\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:34:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:34:24","slug":"they-realize-im-serious-inside-ron-johnsons-megabill-talks-with-the-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/they-realize-im-serious-inside-ron-johnsons-megabill-talks-with-the-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They realize I\u2019m serious\u2019: Inside Ron Johnson\u2019s megabill talks with the White House"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Ron Johnson<\/a> said Wednesday he\u2019s not ready to support Donald Trump\u2019s signature domestic policy bill<\/a>. But the Wisconsin Republican said that the White House, including the president himself, is helping to move him closer to yes.<\/p>\n

Johnson shared details of Monday\u2019s one-on-one meeting with Trump in an exclusive interview where he credited the administration for working with him on a push to set up a budget review panel that would force Congress to return to the issue of deficit reduction even after the \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d is passed.<\/p>\n

He said he remains in discussions about getting the concept included in the megabill ahead of its floor consideration, which could begin as soon as Friday. Besides his meeting with Trump, Johnson said he also spoke this week with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realize we can\u2019t do this in one fell swoop. I think the main sticking point is \u2026 what\u2019s the forcing mechanism to actually realize those savings, to enact them?\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

The panel, he said, would be made up of members of the House, Senate and the Office of Management and Budget. Part of the ongoing discussions are about how it gets funded and if executive orders are needed to back it up.<\/p>\n

So far they haven\u2019t landed on a \u201cforcing mechanism\u201d bulletproof enough to convince Johnson he will get another bite at the apple. GOP leaders, administration officials and even Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham<\/a> (R-S.C.) have said they intend to pursue another party-line reconciliation bill to sweep up any orphaned policy priorities, which would give fiscal hawks like Johnson another chance to seek funding cuts.<\/p>\n

But Johnson is warning that verbal commitments won\u2019t be enough to sway him. He said he floated a shorter debt ceiling hike to force Congress back to the table, but the White House has shot that down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got everybody\u2019s attention,\u201d Johnson said, adding that it\u2019s \u201ccoming down to crunch time \u2014 they realize I\u2019m serious, so they need to get serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

The behind-the-scenes efforts to try to get Johnson on board comes as Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> tries to lock down a range of holdouts on the megabill. He\u2019s got fiscal hawks such as Johnson to contend with as well as a number of GOP senators who are concerned that the bill\u2019s Medicaid cutbacks will have negative impacts on their home states.<\/p>\n

Thune can lose three GOP senators and still let Vice President JD Vance break a tie. He acknowledged this week he \u201ccould\u201d lose two or three of his members.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s White House meeting came after Trump privately told Johnson during a meeting with Finance Committee Republicans earlier this month that he needed to speak more positively about the megabill. Johnson said Trump acknowledged in their conversation that he had been more upbeat in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Still, he\u2019s not a supporter. Asked about Thune wanting a first vote in a matter of days, Johnson noted that Republican senators haven\u2019t gotten final text yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mind the President and Senator Thune saying, okay, we\u2019ve got to get this done by July 4,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s a stretch, I think we have a lot of outstanding issues, but setting that deadline is concentrating everybody\u2019s efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Ron Johnson said Wednesday he\u2019s not ready to support Donald Trump\u2019s signature domestic policy bill. But the Wisconsin Republican said that the White House, including the president himself, is helping to move him closer to yes. Johnson shared details of Monday\u2019s one-on-one meeting with Trump in an exclusive interview where he credited the administration […]<\/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-10630","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\/10630","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=10630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}