President Donald Trump met with House Republicans on Tuesday to get his “big, beautiful” reconciliation budget passed, though several Freedom Caucus and State and the Local Tax (SALT) Caucus members remain unconvinced without further negotiations.
Massie, a staunch fiscal conservative who is no stranger to butting heads with Trump and fellow representatives over his unwillingness to support government spending, said he is still a “hard no” on the bill, the Washington Examiner reported.
He noted that the president was likely able to convince some members of the Freedom and SALT caucuses to “give up their fights”
“I predict they get the bill passed,” the congressman said. “He was very personal, very persuasive.”
Ahead of the conference with the president — where he spoke for over 90 minutes — Trump told reporters that he does not believe that Massie “understands government,” and that he should be “voted out of office.”
Speaking to the press following the meeting, Massie said, “I’m the only Republican right now that you can count on to vote against this vote… It’s not consequential to my vote today, like whether he endorses me or attacks me. It’s just not — doesn’t change the facts.”
The Kentucky Republican added that he was not “offended by anything [Trump] said” about him.
Trump also directed his attention to Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), telling him to back off his demand for a higher limit on SALT deductions to be included in the reconciliation bill.
“I know your district better than you do. If you lose because of SALT, you were going to lose anyway,” the president said in the closed-door meeting, sources told the outlet.
Lawler told reporters that while he “respect[st] the president,” he’s “not budging” on the issue as one of just three Republicans representing a blue district.
“Look, the President can say whatever he wants, and I respect him, but the fact is, I certainly understand my district,” he argued. “I’m one of only three Republican members that won in a district Kamala Harris won, and I did so for reasons.”
“And so if they think we’re going to throw our constituents under the bus to appease [the Freedom Caucus], it’s not happening,” he added.
Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) was also unconvinced to change his mind regarding the $40,000 SALT cap — while Trump believes raising the cap “benefit[s] Democrat governors.”
“Those numbers last night didn’t work for me and the members of the SALT caucus,” LaLota said. “We need a little more salt on the table to get to yes. And I hope the president’s presence motivates my leadership to give us a number that we can go sell back at home.”
“All they need from this town is [a] little salt. I don’t think that’s unreasonable,” the New York representative added.
On Medicaid, Trump had a simple message: “Don’t f*** around with Medicaid.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who has previously shared his concern about cuts to Medicaid, said Trump’s speech was “what the conference needed.”
Rep. David Valadao (R-CA) concurred, saying the president’s stance on Medicaid “reinforced the message I’ve been saying for a while: Don’t touch it.”
While Ralph Norman (R-SC) said he is still not fully a “go” on reconciliation, he told a gaggle of reporters that he thought Trump did a “great job” in the meeting.
“One of the greatest speeches I’ve heard. And it’s real. It was off the cuff. And he said the right things,” the South Carolina congressman noted.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) is also unconvinced to go for the bill following the meeting, but said that a solution is possible.
“We’re still a long ways away, but we can get there — maybe not by tomorrow,” he said.
Fellow Freedom Caucus members Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Eric Burlison (R-MO) also said they are still a “no,” but both noted that more negotiation is possible to get them on board.
“I think that there’s some things that we could move easily to make it more comfortable for a lot of people like myself,” Burlison said, according to the Washington Examiner.
“I think you get the sort of vibe that everybody’s, you know, ‘rah, rah,’ and we’re together, and then everybody walks out of the room,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AK) said after the meeting. “We’ll see. I mean, at the end of the day, people have to make a decision on their own, they have to calculate– I guess, the political calculation has to be made at home.”
Trump denied that he is “losing patience” with House Republicans, calling the Tuesday gathering a “meeting of love.”
A White House official told the outlet that the president “made it clear he’s losing patience with all holdout factions of the House Republican Conference, including the SALT Caucus and the House Freedom Caucus.”
“The President is clear: he wants EVERY Republican to vote yes,” the statement reads.
While Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) goal of getting the budget passed by Memorial Day looks shaky due to the current holdups, the bill has a chance if it passes through the Rules Committee on Wednesday.
Speaking with the press after Trump’s speech, the Speaker said there was “high energy and high excitement” inside the room.
“Failure is not an option,” he said, adding that he would meet with the “small subgroups” and “tie up the remaining loose ends.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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