(WASHINGTON) — The House is debating ahead of a key test vote for President Donald Trump’s tax and immigration megabill to send it to the floor for a final vote but it was unclear Wednesday morning if Speaker Mike Johnson has the votes to get it passed.
Johnson faces opposition from factions within his caucus, particularly among fiscal hawks, that puts passage in question. In addition to that, storms Tuesday snarled travel to Washington. In an earlier procedural vote Wednesday, eight Republicans were absent.
With a razor-thin majority, Johnson can afford only three defections if all members are voting and present.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise cast some doubt that Republicans will succeed today, questioning aloud whether the House will pass the president’s bill on Wednesday.
“We’ll see some time later today if we can get that done,” Scalise told reporters. “So we still have some more conversations with members. Obviously, members have gone through the changes that the Senate made, and you know, some of them take us a little bit backwards. Some of them are a little bit better.”
The House must first pass a rule, which is a procedural motion to advance legislation, to consider final passage of the bill. It is unclear if that will pass.
The House took up the bill Tuesday night after a nail-biter vote in the Senate with Vice President JD Vance casting the tiebreaker vote after it split 50-50. GOP Sens. Thom Tillis, Rand Paul and Susan Collins voted against the measure, along with every Democrat.
The legislation passed the House Rules Committee early on Wednesday with a 7-6 vote.
Republican backers of the Senate bill have touted its roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts and new funding for border security, plus the inclusion of key Trump campaign pledges such as no taxes on tips and overtime.
The legislation also guts Biden-era clean energy initiatives; slashes entitlement health programs like Medicaid and SNAP, which are intended to help the nation’s most vulnerable Americans; and includes a plan to lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction, currently set at $10,000, to $40,000.
The Senate version is projected to add roughly $1 trillion more — and $3.3 trillion in total — to the deficit over the next decade when compared with the version passed by the House in May, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO also found that 11.8 million people could go uninsured over the next decade due to cuts in Medicaid, which emerged as a critical issue among several of the Senate Republican holdouts.
Johnson said Tuesday evening that some members were facing problems getting back to Washington, D.C., after more than 1,200 flights were canceled or delayed across the country because of storms in the eastern U.S.
Nonetheless, Johnson told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night that he expects a vote in the House on Wednesday or Thursday.
“Assuming we have a full House, we’ll get it through the Rules Committee in the morning,” he said. “We’ll move that forward to the floor, and hopefully we’re voting on this by tomorrow or Thursday at latest, depending on the weather and delays and travel and all the rest.”
Johnson and top Republican leaders said in a statement that the House will consider the bill “immediately for final passage” — with renewed intent to put the measure on Trump’s desk by July 4.
“The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay,” the leaders said.
“This bill is President Trump’s agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job,” they added.
Trump told ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on Tuesday that he expects the bill “to go very nicely” in the House.
Asked about the House Republicans who were unhappy with the Senate’s version of the legislation, the president said, “Well, I just heard that about the Senate, and the bill just passed, and it tells you there’s something for everyone.”
“I mean, we have — it’s a great bill,” he continued. “There is something for everyone, and I think it’s going to go very nicely in the House. Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate.”
Trump disputed the CBO’s projection that the bill would cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their insurance.
“I’m saying it’s going to be a very much smaller number than that and that number will be waste, fraud and abuse,” he said, though did not say where he was getting such data or analysis from.
Several House Republicans were at the White House Wednesday morning for meetings as Trump ramped up pressure on his party to pass the bill. Vance arriving as well.
An administration official said the White House is holding multiple meetings on the White House complex with Republicans. The president is expected to engage directly with members throughout the day.
Some of the lawmakers spotted entering the White House included Reps. Jeff Van Drew, Rob Bresnahan, Dusty Johnson, Dan Newhouse, Mike Lawler, Andrew Garbarino. Those lawmakers are part of the Main Street Caucus — a group of lawmakers who bill themselves as “pragmatic” conservatives focused on getting things done.
Vance was also spotted arriving at the White House.
The House process began Tuesday with a meeting of the Rules Committee, which approved the bill by 7-6 after almost 12 hours of discussion. GOP Reps. Ralph Norman and Chip Roy sided with Democrats in voting against the measure in committee.
Roy was among the early critics of the bill, saying he was “not inclined to vote” for the legislation as amended. Roy has previously threatened to withhold support on critical votes, only to ultimately side with the president.
Roy said “the overall deficit number is not good” in the bill the Senate passed, suggesting it violates the House’s budget framework. “It’s front-loaded versus back-loaded, as we all know. I think it got worse. I think SALT got worse. It got more expensive,” he added.
After Tuesday’s Senate vote, Majority Leader John Thune said he and his colleagues had delivered a “strong product” to the House, but also acknowledged there may be more hurdles before the legislation reaches Trump’s desk.
“Well, we’ll see,” Thune said when asked about the bill’s chances. “I mean, you know how hard it was to pass it — I think the House, I appreciate the narrow margins they have over there.”
“I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it,” he added. “And so I’m hopeful that now, when it gets sent over there, as they deliberate about how they want to handle it, they’ll find the goals that are necessary to pass it.”
ABC News’ John Helton, Isabella Murray, Mary Bruce and Alex Ederson contributed to this report.
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