House Republicans will reconvene on Sunday evening to find a path to pass President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” after encountering a hurdle during a key vote on Friday.
Five fiscal hawks, arguing that the legislation insufficiently addressed work requirements for Medicaid and the federal deficit, blocked the measure from making it out of the House Budget Committee. The final vote tally was 16-21.
The GOP lawmakers who voted against pushing forward the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB) include: Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Josh Brecheen (Okla.) and Andrew Clyde (Ga.). Rep. Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) initially voted for the bill, but flipped to a no in a procedural move.
“To be clear — I fully support the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB),” Smucker said Friday after the vote. “My vote today in the Budget Committee is a procedural requirement to preserve the committee’s opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB.”
House Republican leadership is racing to pass the bill with a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline.
“This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Roy, one of the dissenters, said on Friday.
Additionally, House Republicans in blue states signaled that they might not back the final version of the legislation if the state and local tax (SALT) deduction does not increasingly significantly, something that fiscal hawks are not supportive of.
Even after squeezing the legislation through the lower chamber, Republicans could have difficulties getting the measure passed on the Senate side.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) hammered the bill, saying it is a “slap in the face” that will add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
“The problem is it’s asking conservatives, like myself, to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. That’s historic. No one’s ever raised the debt ceiling that much,” Paul told Fox News’s Ainsley Earhardt on Thursday. The Kentucky senator is set to appear on ABC’s “This Week” where he will likely discuss the pending legislation in the House chamber.
Democrats are facing different headaches as questions around former President Biden’s mental acuity are back in the spotlight. Excerpts from the new book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson, published in various outlets this week, detail Biden’s inner circle ignoring the former president vulnerabilities and taking steps to bar even some of his staff from seeing his shortcomings.
One excerpt, which was obtained by The Guardian, revealed that one ex-senior Biden aide told the book’s authors that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023.”
Another excerpt, which was revealed by Tapper on CNN, said that Biden’s top aides iced out Cabinet members during the second half of his Oval Office term.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who was a 2024 Biden campaign surrogate, said this week that it is “obvious now” Biden “was not in a condition” to run for reelection and that the party has to admit it made a “mistake.”
Khanna is scheduled to be on ABC’s “This Week” where he will likely discuss what the Democratic Party needs to do to rebound from losses in the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, this week, President Trump, during his trip to the Middle East, defended his decision to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jet from the Qatari royal family.
“I just want to say, it was a radical left story. The people here, to show you how crazy it is, they would like me to pay a billion dollars,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier.
The plane is intended to be delivered to the Department of Defense and would eventually replace the aging Air Force One, which has been in service for over three decades.
“This goes to the United States Air Force for whoever is president, and at some point, it’ll be like Ronald Reagan. It’ll be decommissioned, because they won’t want it,” Trump said.
The gift, which Trump characterized as a “good deal,” has raised security and ethical questions from Democrats and Republicans alike, which are likely to be discussed on Sunday’s programs.
Former Vice President Pence questioned the move in a clip from his Sunday interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
NewsNation’s “The Hill Sunday”: Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont); Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.)
ABC’s “This Week”: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.); Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
NBC’s “Meet the Press”: Former Vice President Pence; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
CNN’s “State of the Union”: Bessent; Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)
CBS’ “Face the Nation”: Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.); former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday”: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.); House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.); U.S. special envoy for hostage response Adam Boehler.
Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”: Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes; FBI director Kash Patel; FBI deputy director Dan Bongino