When will Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ pass the House?

President Donald Trump is seeing a handful of House Republicans deal what he hopes is a temporary setback to his “Big, Beautiful Bill.”

Despite Trump’s repeated requests that House Republicans pass the gigantic reconciliation bill — which includes the codification of several of Trump’s executive orders, along with larger-than-expected spending cuts targeting across the board expenditures and a $4 trillion debt limit increase — several Republicans in the House tanked a critical vote in the Budget Committee, forcing Republicans to consider what comes next.

While the specifics are uncertain, Republicans lack a plan B if they fail to pass some version of the bill. “It has to pass,” Congressman Glenn Grothman, a Budget Committee member, said. 

The bill failed a critical procedural vote in the Budget Committee after Representatives Chip Roy, Josh Brecheen, Andrew Clyde and Ralph Norman voted against in on ideological grounds, arguing that there are insufficient spending cuts. Congressman Lloyd Smucker joined them in voting against it, but he argued that he did so on procedural grounds, in order to allow it to come back again. 

“We got run over by the Medicaid freight train going 1.5mph that we saw coming four months away,” a veteran House Republican lamented to The Spectator. For months, Democrats — and some Republicans — have argued against deep cuts to Medicaid, a program that Republicans have argued they are trying to save, not destroy.

“We spent two months singing Medicaid’s praises as an essential program and being told to use the word ‘compassionate’ as a shield,” a Capitol Hill veteran said. “Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.” 

Even though many of the Democrats’ attacks on Republicans about Medicaid were so exaggerated that ads containing the messages were forced from circulation, the issue has remained thorny for Republicans — as has the deduction for state and local taxes, or SALT, which many northeastern Republicans are trying to expand, even though an expansion could necessitate cuts to Medicaid.

Trump, for his part, just wants a win, now that he’s back from his breakneck tour of the Middle East. “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL,’” the President posted on Truth Social, leaving no ambiguity on where he stands. “Not only does it cut taxes for ALL Americans, but it will kick millions of Illegal Aliens off Medicaid to PROTECT it for those who are the real ones in real need.”

Roy, for his part, sounded like a resolute “no” vote unless the bill looks drastically different. “This bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending,” he said Friday. “I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. Something needs to change or you’re not gonna get my support.” It’s unclear how much leverage Trump has over the Texan, given that he’s already called for Roy’s electoral defeat. 

A top House GOP aide told The Spectator that while the “mainstream press is going with the Democrats’ line that we are ‘cutting Medicaid,’ that’s not what’s going on.” While there have been messaging disconnects between some in Congress and the White House throughout the process of this bill’s construction, the two sides are working to ensure seamless messaging in the home stretch. 

“This bill protects Medicaid for Americans who actually need it, and we’re doing that with policies that are broadly popular with the American people,” the aide added. “Republicans think that able bodied adults should be working, and that illegal immigrants should not be getting it.”

What comes next is anyone’s guess. Republicans are taking much of the weekend to regroup; the Budget Committee is reconvening at 10 p.m. on Sunday. “You can’t accomplish anything in life without having deadlines and decisions,” Congressman Jodey Arrington, the committee’s chair, said. House Republican leadership staff believe that Republicans are still on track to pass the bill out of the Rules Committee by the middle of next week, and out of the full Congress by the end of the week – this time frame gets dangerously close to the Memorial Deadline that Speaker Mike Johnson had set, although he is no stranger to pulling a rabbit out of a hat. From there, Trump’s bill heads to the Senate.