President Donald Trump will descend on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning where he’s expected to meet with House Republicans on his ‘one, big, beautiful bill.’
Trump is attending the House GOP’s weekly conference meeting, three House GOP sources and two White House officials confirmed to Fox News Digital and Fox News Radio, respectively. It’s normally an hour-long session behind closed doors where Republicans discuss the week’s agenda and any outstanding issues.
The president is expected to rally Republicans around the massive piece of legislation designed to advance his agenda on tax, immigration, defense, energy, and raising the debt limit.
It’s a significant escalation in the president’s involvement in the process so far.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have several critical differences to resolve before their self-imposed deadline to pass the bill by Memorial Day.
Conservatives are pushing for the bill to be more aggressive on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid system, including a faster timeline for implementing work requirements for able-bodied recipients. Currently, the legislation has work requirements kicking in in 2029.
Moderates, meanwhile, have been wary of making significant cuts to the program.
Fiscal hawks are also pushing for a total and near-immediate repeal of the former Biden administration’s green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), noting it was a Trump campaign promise – while other Republicans have pointed out businesses in their districts are benefiting from the tax relief.
There’s also disagreement over raising the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, a critical issue for blue state Republicans representing high-cost-of-living districts. GOP lawmakers in lower-tax states have dismissed it as a giveaway to high-tax Democrat-controlled areas, however.
News of Trump’s likely appearance on Capitol Hill comes after Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on a lawmaker-only call on Monday morning that the president is ready and willing to play an active role in discussions.
‘He wants to be involved as much as we need him,’ Johnson told House GOP colleagues.
The speaker also said he spoke with Trump by phone on Monday morning, and the president was ‘very excited, very encouraged.’
Republicans are working to pass Trump’s policies on tax, immigration, energy, defense, and the national debt all in one massive bill via the budget reconciliation process.
GOP lawmakers also see it as an opportunity to put the country on a better fiscal path, with the national debt already having surpassed $36 trillion.
Budget reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, thereby allowing the party in power to skirt the minority – in this case, Democrats – to pass sweeping pieces of legislation, provided they deal with the federal budget, taxation, or the national debt.
House Republicans are hoping to advance Trump’s bill through the House by the end of this week, with a goal of a final bill on the president’s desk by Fourth of July.
The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before a House-wide vote, is set to take up the bill at 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
