House adopts GOP budget resolution to implement Trump agenda in major victory for Johnson

Washington — The House adopted a budget proposal on Tuesday that paves the way for implementing President Trump’s legislative agenda, handing a major victory to House Speaker Mike Johnson who had been trying to sway a small number of holdouts in the final hours before the vote. 

Republicans narrowly adopted the resolution in a 217-215 vote with no Democratic support and only one GOP defection — Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. With one Democrat absent, Johnson could afford to lose just one GOP vote. Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who had said they would not vote for the resolution, ultimately caved. 

“We got it done” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters after the resolution’s adoption. “We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We are going to deliver the American first agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it, and this is the first step in that process.”  

House GOP leadership stalled bringing up the resolution for more than an hour then appeared to pull the vote, before bringing the bill back up minutes later. The House Democratic Whip’s Office said Republicans had assured Democrats there would be no further votes before it was brought back up. 

Johnson worked the phones with Mr. Trump to persuade holdouts to vote for the package that would enact Mr. Trump’s massive defense, border security, energy and tax agenda. At one point before the vote, the House leader huddled in the back of the chamber with Spartz, Burchett and Massie, before leaving the floor with Spartz, who had had a phone to her ear. 

The president was a “big help,” Johnson said. He added that he didn’t make any commitments to holdouts to get them to flip to yes, saying “we just got everybody to yes.” 

Johnson has been racing to move forward with the resolution, a crucial step in the budget reconciliation process, after House Republican infighting spurred the Senate to forge ahead with a competing plan earlier this month. Johnson won a key victory last week when Mr. Trump endorsed his chamber’s budget outline.

The House GOP budget plan instructs committees to craft legislation that would cut $4.5 trillion in taxes and at least $1.5 trillion in spending, while raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. If House committees don’t achieve at least $2 trillion in spending cuts, then tax cuts would be scaled back, according to an amendment to the resolution that was added to appease conservatives. 

House Democrats widely oppose the measure, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, wrote a letter to his caucus on Monday telling them “it’s imperative that we are present with maximum attendance.” 

Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who gave birth a month ago in her home state, flew to Washington with her newborn son to vote against the resolution. Rep. Kevin Mullin of California, who has been battling a blood clot and infection after recent knee surgery, also made the vote. 

“We had Kevin Mullin literally leave a hospital bed in California, travel here with an IV on the airplane, because he knows how important this vote is,” said Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the minority whip. 

“Brittany Pettersen is on maternity leave, but she understood on behalf of her constituents and the American people how important it was to be there,” Jeffries said. 

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, was the sole absence. The Arizona Democrat has been battling cancer. 

Democrats have warned of potential cuts to Medicaid, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits that could be pursued in the budget reconciliation process. The resolution tasks relevant committees with finding billions of dollars in cuts, some of which could target Medicaid, which has prompted concern among some Republicans, especially in battleground districts.

“This is the very beginning of the process, and they struggled until the very end, Democrats were unified, and we will remain unified throughout this process, because this reckless Republican budget will bring nothing but destruction to the American people,” Jeffries said. 

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York was among the Republicans worried about Medicaid cuts, but she met with Johnson on Monday and said he assured her that Medicaid recipients would not be removed from the rolls “unless they are not fulfilling the work requirements, and they’re not citizens.”

House Republican leadership pushed back on the Medicaid concerns on Tuesday, calling it a Democratic talking point. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota said the budget resolution “merely unlocks the opportunity for committees to begin drafting legislation,” calling it a “blueprint to save America.” And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana stressed that Medicaid isn’t specifically mentioned in the budget resolution, noting that the vote is simply one to begin the reconciliation process. 

Still, Johnson wouldn’t commit to preserving Medicaid in its entirety as the reconciliation process continues, and the budget resolution instructs the committee overseeing Medicaid to find $800 billion in cuts. Johnson said cuts to the program would target “fraud.”

“Medicaid is hugely problematic because it has a lot of fraud, waste and abuse,” Johnson said, when asked whether there could be cuts to the program down the line. “What we’re talking about is rooting out the fraud, waste and abuse.”

The House vote came after the Senate adopted its budget late last week, while the House was away on recess. Since Mr. Trump’s endorsement of the House resolution, Senate Republicans have billed their own budget plan as a backup. The Senate plan would divide the reconciliation process into two bills, with the first aimed at quickly delivering resources for border security and defense, while a later bill would tackle the tax priorities. Senate Republicans also want to make the tax cuts permanent, which the House version does not do. 

contributed to this report.