CNN
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President Donald Trump delivered a blunt message to House Republicans Tuesday morning: Stop negotiating and move ahead with his massive domestic policy bill.
The message, according to sources in the room, was directed to the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and a group of mainly Northeastern lawmakers who are making demands to change the sweeping tax and spending cuts bill.
Making a rare, personal appearance on Capitol Hill, Trump argued that Republicans are “tremendously unified” despite party infighting over key sticking points in the legislative package. Lawmakers emerged from the closed-door meeting with differing views on whether the president had done enough to convince them to vote to send the bill to the Senate this week.
“No, we are still a ways away, but we can get there,” said House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, a conservative who has called for more time to work through negotiations.
Though Trump told reporters the Tuesday morning meeting was “just a pep talk,” the stakes are high. This is Trump’s first in-person meeting with the full group of House Republicans since the conference began drafting his agenda.
And the meeting comes at a critical time for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is pushing to pass the legislative package before Memorial Day, despite significant opposition from some of his members.
“This is a big week for his agenda, for all of us. We’ve been working on reconciliation for more than a year, as you all know, and it all comes down to these details,” Johnson said ahead of the meeting.
“And I think the president is going to encourage everyone this morning to get in line and get the votes done. We need to deliver this to the American people.”
The president’s main priority Tuesday is to urge his party to stop squabbling and make progress on moving the major piece of legislation that contains his core promises from the campaign trail, White House officials told CNN ahead of the meeting.
From Trump’s point of view, the officials said, he has succeeded in getting what he wants in the package. Trump’s campaign-driven goals to deliver sweeping tax cuts and no taxes on tips and overtime pay are what the president cares most about, they said, and the rest is simply negotiating to the finish line.
Director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett told CNN earlier this month that the president’s top priorities “have been communicated, and I have not seen anyone suggest that they’re not going to be in the bill.” He added that Trump “understands that in the end, the final bill will include some priorities of members of the House and of the Senate.”
Trump has a monumental task before him to bring together the factions of the party. With a slim majority in the House leaving little room for detractors, the president’s attempt to sway key holdouts marks a major test of his dealmaking abilities.
As of Tuesday morning, Trump had not directly engaged in whipping the vote of individual members, the officials said, though several of his aides have been closely involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations.
“The White House isn’t freaking out yet,” one person close to Trump told CNN. “The president has been down this road before. He and the team understand that pushing through a bill of this size is going to take time. The key is starting the clock.”
And Trump was blunt with lawmakers on major points of contention, telling the conference “don’t f**k around” on Medicaid, according to two sources in the room.
The warning from the president not to touch the program, except for waste fraud and abuse, comes as there’s been a major question over how many Americans would lose access to Medicaid benefits under Republicans’ proposed package.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday morning that Trump is “always the closer,” and the president was meeting with the conference to discuss the legislative package “in its totality.”
“The president wanted to come and, you know, just talk again with the members. The president’s been very engaged and hands-on this whole process. He’s called members directly, he’s had some of us over in the White House a few times to talk about different pieces of this bill, so we weren’t surprised when he said, you know, ‘OK, you’re ready now,’” the Louisiana Republican said.
Despite a push by some in the party to delay full debate on the package until sticking points are resolved, Scalise said GOP leadership’s plan is still to hold a full House vote Wednesday or Thursday.
Harris on Monday rejected Johnson’s push to pass the package before the House leaves for the Memorial Day recess.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to need more time,” the Maryland Republican said Monday night. “These are complicated discussions. These are complicated issues. These are trillions of dollars.”
Rep. Chip Roy, another GOP ultraconservative, also said Monday he did not agree with Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline, calling it “arbitrary” to put pressure on lawmakers.
“They’re trying to run it in through the jet fumes, and I just don’t agree with that,” the Texas Republican said. “I’ll keep working in good faith to try to make the bill as good as it can be, and then decide where things stand. I think that’s not the way we should do business.”
Major sticking points remain unresolved
But it’s not just conservatives who are frustrated with Johnson’s strategy. The speaker is also working to win over some in the moderate wing of his party, a group that has threatened to oppose the bill without a big state and local tax break – which conservatives loathe.
Trump repeated his message to the conference Tuesday that Democratic governors are to blame for high state and local taxes and they need to deal with it, according to a person inside the meeting. The president didn’t sound particularly warm to fighting for SALT, the person as well as another source said.
Underscoring the tension over the tax provision, two key New York Republicans made clear as they headed into the meeting that they were not satisfied with the latest offer from GOP leaders to raise the SALT cap.
Rep. Mike Lawler called the offer “insufficient,” and fellow New Yorker Nick LaLota said the offer “doesn’t do it for the SALT caucus.”
In one exchange during the meeting, a source in the room said Lawler made his case for a higher SALT cap. But Trump’s message in return was clear: It’s time to stop haggling and move ahead with vote.
Conservative Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who said following the meeting that he was closer though not yet in full support of the bill, has said he’s concerned about the bill’s increase to the SALT tax deduction. He also wants to see “sufficient” work requirements for Medicaid benefits to “eliminate the fraud.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky called the White House’s insistence that the major policy bill would not raise the US deficit “a joke.”
“Is Russ Vought saying that? … OK, well, Russ Vought knows better. He’s the OMB director. I mean, over here, the people in favor of this bill say that under the policies of this bill, we’re going to add $20 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, which is $3.5 [trillion] to $5 trillion more than would have been added otherwise,” the conservative hardliner said.
Asked whether he’s concerned about pressure to support the bill as it stands, Massie said: “They wrote off my vote weeks ago.”
The dissatisfaction from some in the party comes as House GOP leadership is trying to get the bill to the House Rules Committee by 1 a.m. ET Wednesday.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
CNN’s Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer, Morgan Rimmer and Alison Main contributed to this report.
