A handful of Republican House holdouts on President Donald Trump’s budget reconciliation package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, are bracing for a meeting at the White House Wednesday morning where some anticipate a tense showdown with the president.
“I’m sure he’s going to be mad, but I don’t know what to tell him,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), speaking to NBC News about the impending meeting with Trump.
Norman said he and a number of other Republican House holdouts on the bill will be meeting with Trump and his team at 11 a.m. Wednesday over their objections to the latest version of the OBBBA. The bill passed out of the Senate Tuesday with a projected $3.3 trillion increase to the national debt over ten years, about $900 billion more than the version adopted by the House, a sore point for a number of more moderate Republicans.
On the prospects of being swayed to vote in favor of the OBBBA, however, Norman suggested it would be unlikely given its current form.
“The only thing driving this is the tax cuts,” he said. “Once that goes away, how are we going to get anything passed?”
Norman would go on to tell NBC News there was no scenario he could come up with in which he could be convinced to vote in favor of the OBBBA, which has proved controversial among a number of Republican House members, particularly the House Freedom Caucus over its impact on the national debt. Other House Republicans have opposed the bill largely over its cuts to Medicaid, cuts that will likely disproportionately impact Republican-led states.
Included in the bill is an extension of corporate tax cuts, the majority of the benefits benefiting the top 1% of American earners, and cuts to social safety net programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid.
The House is expected to take up the OBBBA on Tuesday afternoon.