When US president Donald Trump made a rare visit to the Capitol on Tuesday, his message to House Republicans was blunt.
“Don’t f**k around with Medicaid,” he warned the private meeting which was designed to persuade a few conspicuous party holdouts to get back in line and vote for the “big, beautiful Bill” that the majority House leader, Mike Johnson, is under enormous pressure to steer through the chamber.
Johnson has indicated he wants voting on the Bill to be completed by Labour Day, which is next Monday, May 26th, with a possible vote slated for this Thursday.
The 1,116-page sweeping tax and spending Bill was approved 17-16 by the House Ways and Means Committee on Sunday night.
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The committee named its package THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL in all capital letters, a nod to Trump’s style on social media. It seeks to extend tax breaks approved during his first term while adding new tax breaks on tips, overtime pay, welfare benefits and car loans, which Trump promised during his campaign for the White House.
It will partly be paid for with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programmes.
Trump’s short trip across the city from the White House gave him an opportunity to eyeball the handful of Republicans who have remained immune to both threats and charms.
Chief offender, in Trump’s eyes, is Thomas Massie, the Kentucky congressman who has been defined by a contrarian streak.
“The Big Beautiful Bill will add $20 trillion of federal debt over 10 years, that’s according to the authors of it,” Massie said on X on Monday evening.
“But there’s another huge problem: it will increase the price of the $36 trillion debt we already have, as bond buyers realise we aren’t fiscally responsible,“ a heavy reference to the US losing its last triple-A rating following Moody’s downgrade on Friday.
As he stopped to speak with Capitol Hill media before Tuesday morning’s meeting, Trump hinted at his unhappiness at the Kentuckian’s defiance.
“I don’t think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he’s a grandstander, frankly. We don’t even talk to him much. I think he probably should be voted out of office and I just don’t think he understands government. If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer.”
Trump first made his desire for “one big, beautiful Bill” known on the election campaign trail, advocating a sweeping piece of legislation that, he promises, will bring tax relief to Americans.
The White House this week promoted it as the largest tax cut in American history, with the introduction of permanent tax cuts, the implementation of the no-tax-on-tips campaign promise while boosting border security funding.
Democrats are uniform in their opposition to the Bill, which they have pilloried as an underhand tax cut for the millionaire and billionaire set and warn that it will involve sweeping cuts to vulnerable low-income Medicaid dependents, with up to 13 million Americans affected.
Trump has insisted that any cuts to Medicaid will be limited to “waste and fraud” as outlined in Subtitle C, Section 3 of the mammoth Bill.
Afterwards, Trump described his conversation with the House representatives as “a meeting of love” while Mike Johnson stood by his side, smiling tightly.
Massie said he is still a “no” on the Bill.
“He does not want to cut Medicaid ... I think he genuinely doesn’t want to cut Medicaid,” Massie said of Trump.
“He probably wouldn’t take off one beneficiary who’s not an illegal alien or felon. ... I don’t think he cares about work requirements. If he did, they would be real and they would kick in now,” he said, shrugging off the implications of invoking Trump’s wrath. “It’s fine – he said my hair is nicer than Rand Paul’s.”
The Bill squeaked through the budget committee on Sunday night at the second time of asking. Four Republicans - Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Oklahoma representative Josh Brecheen and Georgia representative Andrew Clyde – had all voted with their Democratic committee colleagues to defeat it but, in Sunday’s second vote, they effectively abstained.
Roy, another persistent thorn in Trump’s side, is among those adamant that the cuts to Medicaid and other social security programmes need to be deeper in order to prevent the national debt of $36 trillion from further swelling.
“There are a lot of good things that have happened,” Roy said on Tuesday evening. “We’re in a better spot than we were a week ago. We’re in a better spot than we were even 48 hours ago. But there’s still a lot of things we’re ironing out.”
The situation highlights the fragile nature of the “mandate” that Trump has repeatedly referenced since his November win.
