Following the confusion and delays, the House on Tuesday passed a Republican budget resolution and launched the process of enacting President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda by voting 217-215. A narrow majority of GOPs.
The GOP leader managed to take charge of three of the four holdouts: Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson and Victoria Spartz. Another Rep. Thomas Massey was the only Republican to vote against the resolution. Republicans can only afford to lose one vote.
“We haven’t done much work yet, but we’re going to celebrate tonight. We’ll put our sleeves together and come back in the morning,” Johnson told reporters after the vote.
It was not clear whether Republicans had the vote to pass the action Tuesday afternoon and evening. At least four Republicans have said they will vote no on the plan, and Mike Johnson said he can afford one asylum.
House Republicans began their first vote Tuesday night over an hour. This is because Democrats protested as leadership tried to narrow down votes on fundraising resolutions.
The GOP leader then temporarily pulled out the budget resolution (the next vote in the series) from the schedule, rescheduled it a few minutes later, and brought the entire house back into the room.
Democrat leaders were able to attend the critical vote with more members. Rep. Brittany Petterson, who is on maternity leave, showed up to vote with her son. Rep. Kevin Marin, who is suffering from a medical condition, appeared along with a pedestrian. House Democrat leaders have accused Democrats of Johnson trying to “jamm” the budget resolution after he assures that Johnson does not have any more votes in the House for the night.
Before the vote, Johnson told reporters, “We’re trying to get over our concerns and issues. We want to make sure that a lot of people are cutting the right amount…it’s very It’s a complicated negotiation… we’ll get there.”
The resolution is now heading to the Senate, where the open question of what leadership will do with the blueprint. Senate majority leader John Tune has a different approach in the upper room. While the one bill is focused on defense and border security, addressing tax cuts and debt caps, the president is fully supportive of the House Republican blueprint.
Republicans will use settlement, a tactic that requires only a simple majority to pass. However, under the settlement, both chambers must adopt the exact same resolution.
“This is the first important step to opening a settlement process. There is a lot of effort ahead of us,” Johnson said after the vote. “We’re going to provide America’s first agenda. We’re going to provide everything, not just some of it. This is the first step in that process.”
Republicans leaned against Trump to put pressure on undecided holdouts and other GOP members.
“The president spoke with many members. He is well known about his intentions and wants to vote for them and move on so that he can start the process,” Johnson said. .
But while signing the executive order at the oval office later Tuesday, Trump said, “I’m not involved in it. They know what I want.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will make his remarks on February 25, 2025 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., after the House passed a Republican budget resolution on the spending bill.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Burchet told ABC News that he spoke to Trump but refused to reveal details of the conversation.
Johnson previously suggested that he was unsure whether the vote would occur Tuesday, and could be pushed.
“There may be votes tonight. It may not exist. Look forward to it. That’s why you’ll receive the reward. Please stroll around here,” he told reporters.
House majority leader Steve Scullies defended the budget by claiming Democrats were “lied” when Republicans argued that they were being prepared to cut Medicaid deeply.
“The bill doesn’t even mention the term ‘Medicaid’, but even so, all Democrats are lying about things that are on the budget because they don’t want to talk about the truth,” Scullyse said. . “Apart from just sitting down and hurting them not fully contacting Americans, their only option is to resort to lying to this vote today. This bill has Medicaid. No. No Medicaid. We will cut this bill.
The blueprint itself does not directly address Medicaid, but sets mandatory federal spending targets for at least $2 trillion cuts, including funding for qualification programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Louisiana Republican Steve Scullyse holds a copy of the House Republican budget bill during a press conference after the Republican meeting at Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., on February 25, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Johnson and his leadership team worked for several weeks to ease concerns.
After Tuesday’s closed door meeting, Massie imagined the GOP leader “persuaded him” to vote no. They predict that the measure will actually increase the deficit by billions of dollars.
Rep. Thomas Massey speaks to reporters on February 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C., as he arrives for a House Republican meeting at the Capitol.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Nevertheless, Johnson defended the blueprint.
“The purpose and our commitment have always been neutral to the deficit. That’s the goal here. If we can reduce the deficit, it’s even better,” Johnson responds to accusations that the plan will increase the deficit. I did.
Several additional Republicans, including New York State Rep. Nicole Mariotakis, have been undecided, stressing that she is acting on behalf of her older constituency.
“I’m still undecided, but I’m leaning more towards Jesus because I’ve got some clarity and assurances that I feel comfortable moving forward with this process,” she said. “We need to make sure our leadership includes our people who have a large Medicaid population in the process.”
Self-proclaimed “budget hawk” Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick said he is still “debating” about whether he supports the resolution.
“We want to be more proactive by cutting spending so that we can save Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more,” he said.
“I’m trying to figure out exactly what this entails… how this bill will affect the actual hard numbers, that’s what I’m interested in,” he says. I did.
House Democrats gathered on the Capitol stairs Tuesday afternoon to protest “assault” over democracy and “reckless Republican budget.”
Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries led a group of lawmakers and declared that Democrats had united their opposition to the measure.
“So let me be clear, House Democrats don’t offer one vote on this reckless Republican budget, not one, not one, not one. They’re a single democratic He said, “I don’t get voted for that.” Why?
Jeffries said the GOP budget plan “represents the biggest Medicaid cut in American history,” saying, “children are devastated. Families are devastated. People with disabilities are devastated. Older Those will be devastated. Please devastate.”
“Everything we care about is being attacked. The economy is being attacked. The safety net is being attacked. Our way of life as a nation is being attacked. Democracy itself is being attacked. “American people,” he said.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
