Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican leaders returned from the White House Wednesday night as optimistic about the reconciliation bill as they’ve been in months, with leaders so enthusiastic about the direction of talks that they weren’t ruling out a vote on the legislation in a matter of hours.
“We’re in a very good place,” Johnson told reporters. “I think that all of our colleagues here will really like this final product, and I think we’re going to move forward.”
“The plan is to reconvene,” he added.
Johnson said he hoped to hold a vote on the rule for the bill Wednesday night, with final passage potentially coming as early as Thursday morning. He added that “there’s not much changing” in the measure because “the underlying product, we thought, was so well done.”
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House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was even more bullish about the reconciliation bill, telling reporters he was “very confident that we’re going to keep this bill moving tonight.”
“Keeping this bill moving means passing it,” he clarified.
But Scalise also suggested this could be a scenario where they flip votes on the floor, recalling how Republicans handled the budget framework in April.
“There were some people that were ‘no’ walking onto the floor that ultimately voted ‘yes,’” Scalise said.
House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx told committee members that an agreement has been reached on the manager’s amendment and that she expects a floor vote to happen late Wednesday night.
Following the White House meeting, House Freedom Caucus members huddled in Chair Andy Harris’ office Wednesday evening, with members eventually trickling out and sharing varying degrees of optimism about the status of talks.
Part of the reworked deal includes moving the effective date for the Medicaid work requirements to December 2026, according to a source familiar with the deal. Additionally, the proposal includes winding down Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for wind, solar and battery power by 2028, with a requirement to start that process within 60 days of enactment, two sources told NOTUS.
But Rep. Ralph Norman — who declined to provide any specifics on the policy negotiations — told reporters “one word could change this whole thing.”
Most members were enigmatic.
When asked if he’s supporting the bill, Rep. Michael Cloud responded: “Stay tuned.”
Rep. Andy Biggs, who said he was not in the White House meeting, told reporters while leaving the meeting that he was officially supporting the bill.
“We’re taking a whole-of-government approach. I think it’s been very productive, we’ve moved the needle,” Biggs said. “We’re going to get this thing resolved.”
He added that he expects the House to vote in the “wee hours” of the morning.
Rep. Clay Higgins said the Freedom Caucus was “polishing the edges of arguably the most significant piece of legislation that has ever come through this body.”
“So give us the opportunity to finish the final hours of the bill,” he said. “And you’ll see where everyone lands.”
Rep. Eric Burlison said he couldn’t commit to voting “yes” on the bill until he saw the full text. However, he added that “in general, we’re in the same spirit, like we want the same objective.”
Trump, he said, is “the master of the deal. So it was kind of, it was amazing to see it in action.”
The Trump administration also sounded optimistic about the direction of the talks, though officials stopped short of saying they had reached an agreement with conservative holdouts.
“The meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The president reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big, Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible.”
For weeks, conservative holdouts — led by Rep. Chip Roy and Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris — have demanded even deeper spending cuts in exchange for their votes, specifically targeting Medicaid. Although the legislation already slashes nearly $715 billion from Medicaid, conservatives have called for additional reductions that moderates, leadership and the White House oppose.
The standoff led to House GOP leaders calling in reinforcements: Donald Trump.
During a closed-door meeting Tuesday, the president told House Republicans not to “fuck around with Medicaid” and to take the deal on the table raising the state and local tax deduction.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans were less than convinced, with some GOP lawmakers saying Trump had actually done more harm than good. But with the SALT caucus Republicans finally seeming to reach a deal late Tuesday night that would quadruple the SALT deduction from $10,000 to $40,000, Freedom Caucus members became the last major holdouts.
It was an uncomfortable place for these Trump-loving conservatives.
Despite Harris starting Tuesday by declaring there was “no way” the bill passes today, conservatives now seem to be in a different place, though members coming out of the White House meeting have largely refrained from public statements.
The decision to move forward with the vote, however, was the best indication that the conservative opposition has turned.
Still, there are a number of Republicans who remain in doubt. Rep. Thomas Massie has seemed ungettable since the beginning. Rep. Warren Davidson told reporters Wednesday night he was still a firm “no.” He said the only thing that would change his mind were significant changes that address the deficit.
“I want to find a way to say, ‘Yes.’ But you look at the bond market today, the bond market read the bill, too,” Davidson said.
It remains unclear if conservatives got additional concessions. Republicans, in fact, have yet to produce a final version of the legislation, despite starting a Rules hearing at 1 a.m. on Wednesday for the reconciliation bill. (The hearing was ongoing as of early Wednesday evening.)
Republicans are expected to offer a manager’s amendment with the latest changes to the measure at some point, setting up a debate on the House floor to adopt the rule, which will establish the parameters of debate for the overall bill.
Once that rule has been adopted, Republicans can then move on to the actual reconciliation bill, with a final vote expected shortly after. The whole process may only take a matter of hours.
But Republicans are functionally rushing a bill to the floor that, as far as the public is concerned, has not yet been released.
Democrats continue to argue that the GOP is trying to pass the legislation, which would extend current individual tax rates and make sweeping changes to Medicaid, in the dead of night. However, by moving as fast as possible with their delicate majority, Republicans are proving a maxim of congressional power: You vote when you have the votes.
And the growing consensus on Capitol Hill — at least between leadership and conservatives — is that votes would take place Thursday morning. And there was suspicion from some leadership aides that Freedom Caucus members were busy concocting their rationales for changing their minds.
“So, basically, the HFC is meeting right now to decide what they are going to say got them to ‘yes’?” a senior GOP aide said.
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Reese Gorman, Riley Rogerson and Daniella Diaz are reporters at NOTUS. Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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