Speaker Mike Johnson Faces Crucial Test as House Budget Committee Prepares Contentious Vote
Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team are taking a significant political risk as they move forward with a crucial House Budget Committee vote on Friday — despite uncertainty over whether they have the necessary support to pass it.
As the GOP members of the committee arrived at the Capitol, it remained unclear if leadership had struck any last-minute deals with conservative holdouts who, just 12 hours earlier, threatened to derail the bill. Republican lawmakers and aides offered no hints.
The committee is assembling a sweeping tax and spending cuts package, a key part of former President Donald Trump’s policy agenda. While the panel cannot alter the bill significantly, advancing it out of committee is essential for a full House vote planned for next week.
Overnight, Johnson and his team scrambled to win over four conservative Republicans — Reps. Ralph Norman, Chip Roy, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde — who had opposed the bill unless deeper spending cuts were included. Their demands focused on accelerating Medicaid work requirements and rolling back clean energy tax credits from the Biden era.
Drama unfolded early Friday as the four lawmakers abruptly walked out of the committee meeting and gathered in Roy’s office, avoiding reporters’ questions. Norman later returned to the meeting room and expressed frustration.
“All of us are very disappointed with the progress — or lack of,” he told reporters. “I’m done with smoke and mirrors. We’ve got a math problem.” He declined to say whether he would vote against the bill.
Roy added, “I think they should recess,” without confirming how he would vote.
Budget Committee Chair Rep. Jodey Arrington can only afford to lose two Republican votes. A failure to advance the bill in committee would deal a serious blow to Speaker Johnson and delay next week’s full House vote.
Trump weighed in on Truth Social, urging Republicans to stop the infighting: “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!” He added, “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’”
Roy, still signaling resistance, posted an outside analysis of the bill’s impact on the deficit just before the meeting began, captioning it: “Why there’s a problem.” He refused to say how he would vote.
Brecheen also declined to comment as he arrived at the Capitol.
Underscoring the vote’s importance, Republican leaders asked Rep. Brandon Gill — whose wife had just given birth to their second child — to return to Washington for the vote. Two GOP sources had indicated earlier that Gill would not be in attendance, which would have left the leadership with even less room for defections.
