It was nearly 10 p.m. on a Sunday night when House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., surprised reporters in the hallway of the Cannon House Office Building.
The top House Republican was making a low-key — but high-stakes — visit to the House Budget Committee before the panel’s second meeting on President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’ The first meeting on May 16 had blown up without resolution when four fiscal hawks balked at the legislation and voted against advancing it to the full House.
‘The real debate was, is when [we] voted not to approve the budget. And the reason I did that, along with the others, was we needed to make the provisions better,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital.
‘It was our opportunity to make a bill that overall was good, better. And that was the impetus to stop the budget, and then get some concessions. And then when it reached Rules Committee, there really wasn’t that much dissension.’
The committee meeting continued with little fanfare, save for Democratic objections to the bill, before one more visit from Johnson, when he signaled the deal was sealed.
‘I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight,’ Johnson said.
He was right, with the legislation advancing exactly along party lines.
Fox News Digital was told that conservatives were anticipating what is called a manager’s amendment, a vehicle with wide flexibility to change legislation, before the House Rules Committee’s vote to advance the bill to the full chamber.
The House Rules Committee acts as the final gatekeeper to most bills before a House-wide vote. Trump himself made a rare visit to Capitol Hill the morning of May 20 to urge Republicans to vote for the bill.
House leaders again signaled confidence late on May 21, informing Republicans that they would likely vote soon after the House Rules Committee’s meeting was over. However, that meeting alone had already dragged on for hours, from just after 1 a.m. on May 21 to finally voting on Trump’s tax bill just after 2:30 a.m. on May 22. Lawmakers and reporters alike struggled to stay awake as Democratic lawmakers forced votes on over 500 amendments, largely symbolic, in a bid to drag out the process.
Meanwhile, at some point overnight, talks with GOP holdouts went south.
The House Freedom Caucus held an impromptu press conference directly after Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., met with Johnson.
‘The leadership’s going to have to figure out where to go from here,’ Harris said. ‘I think there is a pathway forward that we can see…I’m not sure this can be done this week. I’m pretty confident it could be done in 10 days. But that’s up to leadership to decide.’
Harris also said the Freedom Caucus had struck a ‘deal’ with the White House, something a White House official denied. ‘The White House presented HFC with policy options that the administration can live with, provided they can get the votes,’ the official said.
However, the manager’s amendment, which finally came out just after 11 p.m. on May 21, eased the concerns of at least several of the fiscal hawks.
It bolstered funding to states that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), included additional tax relief for gun owners, and quickened the implementation of Medicaid work requirements, among other measures.
Meanwhile, a small group of those House Freedom Caucus members had also been meeting with a small group of conservative senators who assured them they would seek deep spending cuts in the bill when it landed in the upper chamber, Norman said.
‘It was our hope that the Senate would come back and even make the cuts deeper, so that the deficit could be cut,’ Norman said.
The moves were not enough to ease everyone’s concerns, however. Roughly three hours after the amendment’s release, Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the only Republican member of the House Rules Committee to miss the key vote.
Fox News Digital inquired via text message why Roy missed the vote and was told he was ‘actually reading the bill…’
Nevertheless, it passed by an 8 to 4 vote — prompting House leaders to warn their members to return for what would be an all-night series of voting and debates. Democratic leaders, recognizing they would be sidelined completely if Republicans had enough support on their side, again moved to delay the proceedings.
A whip notice sent to House Democrats, obtained by Fox News Digital, warned left-wing lawmakers that ‘House Republicans are planning to finish debate and vote on final passage of H.R. 1 late tonight.’
The notice advised that House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., would force a vote on adjourning the House and that ‘additional procedural votes are expected.’
In a bid to keep Republicans close to the House floor for what was an hourslong night, the speaker set up a side room with snacks and coffee for lawmakers to wait out proceedings. In the House Appropriations Committee room just down the hall, more Republicans were huddled over cigars and other refreshments. The smell of tobacco smoke wafted out as increasingly haggard lawmakers shuffled between the two rooms.
Fox News Digital even heard from several lawmakers inquiring when the final vote was expected to be — and wondering whether they had time for a nap themselves. Meanwhile, Fox News Digital spotted Harris and Roy walking the opposite way from the hullabaloo of the House floor, toward the much quieter Longworth House Office Building.
Both said they were leaving for more conversations with White House staff before the final vote.
‘The manager’s amendment gets us a little closer, but we’re still in discussions with the executive branch to see whether we can achieve the objectives that we seek, which is support the president’s goals on waste fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid and, you know, making sure that we’ve got all we can out of the Inflation Reduction Act,’ Harris said.
Roy said he hoped Republicans would go further against states that drastically expanded their Medicaid populations under the ACA. He also signaled that leaders suggested at the time some further Medicaid reform could come from the White House.
‘The speaker alluded to this afternoon…that there are things in the executive space, executive actions, that we think could take care of some of the concerns that we were having about — again, it’s not what we want, but it does ameliorate some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion front,’ Roy said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the speaker’s office for comment.
When it came time for the final vote, it appeared enough was done to get Roy on board. Harris, however, voted ‘present.’
Neither made themselves available for an interview for this story.
The final vote saw just two Republican defections — Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., long a critic of Johnson, and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio.
‘While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO,’ Davidson posted on X just before the vote began.
Two other Republicans, Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., both fell asleep before the final vote — but both said they would have voted to pass the bill.
In the end, it advanced by a 215-214 vote — with Republicans erupting in cheers when they realized the victory was locked.
‘The media, the Democrats have consistently dismissed any possibility that House Republicans could get this done. They did not believe that we could succeed in our mission to enact President Trump’s America First agenda. But this is a big one. And once again, they’ve been proven wrong,’ Johnson said during a press conference after the vote.
Now, the bill is expected to be considered by the Senate next week — when senators are already signaling they are gearing up to make changes.
‘I encourage our Senate colleagues to think of this as a one-team effort as we have, and to modify this as little as possible, because it will make it easier for us to get it over the line ultimately, and finish and get it to the president’s desk by July fourth,’ Johnson said.