Johnson punts on key budget blueprint vote as GOP holdouts seek concessions on spending cuts

By Sarah Ferris and Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson punted Wednesday night on a key budget vote essential to advancing Donald Trump’s agenda, as a group of House GOP conservatives demanded party leaders agree to steep spending cuts.

Johnson said he had personally spoken with the president about the need to postpone the vote on the Senate’s budget blueprint in order to make concessions to the group. Those demands remained late Wednesday despite a fierce lobbying push from the president himself.

“This is part of for process. This is a very constructive process,” the speaker said.

“So we’re going to … talk about maybe going to conference with Senate or an amendment, but we’re going to make that decision,” Johnson said, adding he hopes to pass the Senate blueprint Thursday morning before the House leaves for a two week recess.

Johnson said he stepped out of the room to speak with Trump and that he “told him exactly what we’re doing.” “He understands it. He supports the process. He wants us to do this right and do it well, and sometimes it takes a little bit more time to do that,” the speaker said.

The decision to push the vote drew the fury of Johnson’s leadership team, who ultimately had to bend to the ultraconservatives after they made clear they would not budge on the party’s contentious budget measure as written.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker, one of the Republican holdouts, said he is pushing for an amendment that would have binding language for higher spending cuts. One idea is for the budget resolution to tie the size of the tax cuts to deficit reduction measures – similar to Smucker’s idea in the House.

While Rep. Andy Ogles, one of the hold outs, has walked the plank for Trump on politically tough bills before, it became clear in the hours before Johnson’s planned vote that the president’s pressure campaign wasn’t working.

After speaking to a White House official on Tuesday night, the Tennessee Republican remained unswayed, and even personally warned Johnson to not bring the party’s contentious budget measure to the floor.

“It’s going to fail,” Ogles recalled telling Johnson of the Senate-passed blueprint for Trump’s agenda.

Ogles is among more than a dozen Republicans who are defying Trump on his push for a Senate GOP budget measure that tees up huge tax cuts and trillions of spending to hike the debt limit — all while committing to pay for just $4 billion of it.

Republicans like Ogles are refusing to commit to that budget plan until their party leaders can guarantee a serious deficit reduction push, including from the Senate. While Trump and GOP leaders’ fierce whip operation has limited some of those defections – down from as many as 50 members earlier this week – Johnson still faces a huge vote problem with his own conference as he attempts to pass the Senate measure Wednesday night.

One potential off-ramp emerged Wednesday.

Rep. Ralph Norman, a holdout, suggested House Republicans are working with senators on “some cuts that the Senate would agree to” addressing the disparity in the House and Senate versions of the blueprint. The South Carolina Republican said those changes would not be made in the blueprint that Johnson brings to the floor, but rather would be a commitment to be incorporated in the future reconciliation bill.

Johnson’s next move is not clear, though GOP leadership sources suggested he may still force bringing the vote on the blueprint to the floor, daring Republicans to vote against the president.

Speaking to reporters earlier Wednesday, Johnson acknowledged that his fellow Republicans’ “concerns are real” but projected confidence that his team could convince the final holdouts. “I think it is going to pass today,” he said at the time.

The tension within the GOP conference is largely aimed across the Capitol at the Senate, which is far more squeamish on big spending cuts than the more conservative House.

“I trust the president, but I don’t trust the Senate. They’re a key part of this conversation,” Ogles said.

In recent days, Trump has made perhaps the strongest pitch of his presidency so far to House Republicans to back the measure. He personally summoned a group of Republicans to the White House for meetings, while dozens of others have received calls from his senior advisers.

In meetings on the Hill in the last 48 hours, Trump’s deputy treasury secretary urged GOP lawmakers to back the measure, while separately, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller pitched potential future spending cuts in a meeting with House Judiciary Republicans, according to people familiar with the discussions. Johnson himself sat down with the Freedom Caucus meeting on Monday night, which resulted in a tense discussion about the budget.

“We want everybody all in because it unlocks the opportunity to do the reconciliation package, which is where the rubber meets the road,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, who leads the House GOP policy committee.

But Rep. Rich McCormick, who said he is “undecided” on the budget plan, estimated that 15 more of his colleagues are firmly opposed right now.

“There is a trust factor that’s been kind of betrayed in recent history so we’re all a little bit wary of this negotiation process. Not that the president’s lying to us, but that the Senate will roll and somehow or another, the people who don’t want to cut spending significantly will find a way to continue the spending at the level it is,” McCormick said.

Just last month, the Georgia Republican had to be personally convinced to vote for the president’s bill to fund the government through September 30. He recalled sitting in meetings where they discussed ways to tackle federal spending — but then, as he now recalled, “we did none of it.”

“If you keep on pulling the football from when I’m kicking, eventually you’re going to get a little wary,” McCormick told CNN of his hesitation to get in line again.

That chorus of House conservatives who are demanding these big cuts as part of Trump’s domestic policy megabill, however, is so far failing to force the Senate’s hand.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune defended his chamber’s decision to commit to no more than $4 billion in his package, even as he acknowledges it has been a huge sticking point for conservatives.

“It’s kind of a feature of how we draft them to comply with the Byrd rule. A lot of it is just kind of speaking different languages but we understand where they are coming from and are trying to address that and just make sure everybody is comfortable with moving forward,” Thune said Wednesday.

CNN’s Haley Talbot and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.