Trump tax bill faces fresh hurdles as holdouts meet with Trump at White House

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders faced a last-minute revolt Wednesday by members of the party’s hardline conservative faction, who opposed their latest attempt to win support from moderate members of the conference for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill.

As a pivotal meeting of the House Rules Committee entered its sixteenth hour after starting at 1:00 a.m., Speaker Mike Johnson‘s self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for passing the bill on the House floor looked more and more difficult to meet.

“I don’t think it can be done today. I mean, the runway is short today. The leadership is going to have to figure out you know where to go from here,” House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters on Capitol Hill earlier in the day.

Harris and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas were among the members who met with Trump at the White House Wednesday afternoon, in a hastily arranged effort to unify the conference.

Johnson said he was “trying to get the bill in its best possible form, and we’re trying to meet our deadline for the vote.”

Meanwhile, markets tumbled Wednesday on concerns that Trump’s spending bill would pass and lead to exploding federal deficits and weaker long-term fiscal health for the nation. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond yield hit 5.09%.

Johnson’s narrow Republican majority means that he can only lose a handful of votes from his conference and still pass the bill on a straight party line vote.

Harris, Roy and the rest of the Freedom Caucus wield enough votes and influence that their continued opposition to passing the package all but guarantees that it wouldn’t pass in its current form.

Still, Trump remained hopeful on Wednesday that Republicans could force the bill through the chamber before members leave for the holiday weekend.

The president said he felt “very well” about the bill during brief remarks to reporters at the White House.

“We’re doing really well, it’s very close,” Trump said of the bill before a meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa.

Before the tax package can proceed to a vote on the House floor, Republicans on the Rules Committee must vote to adopt the specific slate of rules that will govern debate on the bill ahead of the actual vote.

The bill seeks to deliver on Trump’s key campaign promises, and includes provisions to make permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, raising the SALT cap and eliminate taxes on tips.

A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates “that in general, resources would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile.”

Trump visited the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to personally advocate for the bill, issuing a stark warning to House Republicans to not “f— around with Medicaid.”

Some House Republicans want cuts to the massive Medicaid health-care coverage program, which covers primarily low-income people.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.