House GOP Faces Rebellion As Johnson Scrambles To Salvage Trump Tax Bill

After months of grinding negotiations, late-night Senate rewrites, and bruising intra-party fights, House Republicans are careening toward a moment of reckoning. Speaker Mike Johnson is pressing ahead this week with a vote on the party’s massive reconciliation package — a cornerstone of President Donald J. Trump’s second-term agenda — but signs of fracture within the Republican conference threaten to derail the plan just hours before the vote.

The legislation, a multi-trillion-dollar tax-and-spending overhaul, is the product of months of backroom dealing between House and Senate Republicans. If passed, it would represent the most significant domestic achievement of Trump’s presidency to date. But GOP leaders now face resistance from both flanks of their party, from hardline conservatives warning of fiscal betrayal, and moderates fearing political blowback over health care cuts.

“We’re working through everybody’s concerns and letting them know this is the best possible product we can produce,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday morning, conceding that he does not yet have the votes to pass even the procedural rule required to begin debate on the bill.

Deepening Doubts, Tight Timeline

The House is scheduled to reconvene at 9 a.m. today, with leadership aiming to move the legislation before the July 4 recess. But on Tuesday night, Johnson and his team were still scrambling. Members of the GOP whip team expressed alarm over the number of “no” votes on their tally sheets — including from lawmakers they had assumed were in support.

Two conservative members of the Rules Committee, Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, voted against advancing the bill Tuesday night, a warning sign of trouble ahead. A procedural vote, initially slated for Wednesday, may be delayed to Thursday due to both political uncertainty and widespread travel delays caused by thunderstorms snarling flights into Washington.

"We have fifty-one-and-a-half million foreign born people in this country," Roy told Punchbowl News. "You clamp down on illegal immigration, which is what the president is doing, but you need to limit, slash and refocus legal immigration… legal immigration is part of the problem." 

Even Speaker Johnson admitted during a Fox News appearance Tuesday night that the vote might slip another day.

Hardliners Dig In

A cluster of House Freedom Caucus members are threatening to tank the bill, saying Johnson has abandoned the House’s original budget framework, one that paired $2 trillion in spending cuts with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. The Senate-passed version, they argue, compromises too much.

Roy wrote on X Tuesady night;

FACT:  The Senate OBBB increases deficits and violates the terms of the budget deal in the House.

FACT: The Senate OBBB guts the strong provisions to terminate the “green new scam” subsidies in the House bill.

FACT: The Senate OBBB removes key provisions we put in the bill to stop illegal aliens from getting Medicaid.

FACT: The Senate OBBB removes key provisions we put in the bill to stop taxpayer funding of transgender surgeries.

FACT: We can amend it, send it back, fix it, & pass both the tax cut extensions AND border provisions we all want to pass.

Happy to stay here every day until we get it right.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said publicly that the bill is unlikely to pass “as is” and expressed agreement with Elon Musk, who labeled the proposal “bad.” Roy, meanwhile, raised alarm over the bill’s deficit projections. Norman has signaled he will vote no on both the rule and the bill itself.

Adding to the drama is a pro-Trump super PAC now running attack ads against Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a frequent critic of the bill. And Sen. Thom Tillis’ (R-N.C.) unexpected retirement announcement — after opposing the Senate version — sent a ripple of caution through GOP ranks.

Moderates Waver

It’s not just the right causing trouble for Johnson. Several moderates from swing districts are voicing concerns over the bill’s Medicaid cuts and repeal of clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who represents a district Trump lost in 2020, is seen as a possible “no” vote due to Medicaid and energy concerns. Rep. David Valadao of California and Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, both vulnerable members, are also being watched closely. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC), the only practicing physician in Congress, has demanded guarantees that the bill’s $50 billion rural hospital fund will benefit struggling institutions like those in his district. “I actually still practice and take care of patients,” Murphy said. “The district that I represent is one of the poorest in the country.”

Reps. Glenn Grothman and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin have also raised alarms over the bill’s impact on rural hospitals. And several newly elected members, including Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, have raised similar concerns about Medicaid provisions.

Leadership Strategy: Trump at the Center

With time running short, House Republican leaders, including Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Whip Tom Emmer, are leaning heavily on Trump’s influence to lock in support. The president is scheduled to meet privately today with key GOP factions, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, to try and close the deal, Bloomberg reports. Johnson will remain at the Capitol holding separate meetings with undecided members.

The message from leadership: This may not be the bill Republicans dreamed of, but it’s the only one that can pass. “Despite what House Republicans hoped to see in this bill, this is what they face now. And it’s time to put it up for a vote,” one senior aide said.

As Punchbowl notes further, inside leadership circles, some are questioning whether the rule, let alone the final bill. can be passed. 

Democrats, meanwhile...

House Democrats are unified in opposition and eager to tie the legislation to Republican vulnerabilities in the upcoming midterm elections.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told Punchbowl that the bill would haunt “every single swing-seat Republican” who votes for it. He pointed to steep Medicaid reductions and threats to rural health care access as political liabilities. “The American people do not trust the Republican Party with respect to health care,” Jeffries said. “The whole enterprise is a toxic scheme.”

On Thursday, Jeffries is expected to deliver a roughly one-hour speech on the House floor, a so-called “Magic Minute,” to lay out Democrats’ objections.

The stakes for Johnson and Trump could not be higher.