Mike Johnson backed down on Wednesday and canceled plans to vote on a Republican budget resolution serving as the vessel for major parts of Donald Trump’s agenda.
The Republican speaker of the House set up votes Wednesday on a budget resolution authored by his peers in the Senate as the GOP moves on to the next step of the reconciliation process. But Johnson, who can afford just three defections among his caucus for the vote to succeed, is still reportedly facing more than a dozen likely or potential “no” votes from Republicans if the vote goes ahead.
A rule vote, the first hurdle for the legislation, passed Wednesday afternoon with the thinnest of margins, 216-215. But it became clear after Johnson and House leadership left open a preceding vote for more than an hour that he and his Republican colleagues did not have the votes to advance the Senate framework.
The speaker told reporters Wednesday evening that leadership planned to try again Thursday morning, after further meetings with members. Some members said in response that getting all Republican members to be present on Thursday would be difficult.
“We’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate or adding an amendment, but […] we are going to continue to move forward,” the speaker said after the vote was called off.
The White House put pressure on House Republicans to pass the Senate framework, but was unsuccessful despite Johnson calling a large group of holdouts off the floor for a discussion on Wednesday. President Donald Trump repeatedly urged House lawmakers to vote for the budget resolution in Truth Social postings and again Wednesday during an event with NASCAR drivers at the White House.
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“Mike Johnson is a great speaker. He’s done a fantastic job,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn.
“We had a majority of one; now we have a majority of seven. And you don’t realize how big seven is until you’ve had a majority of one,” he said, chuckling. “We got a bill passed the other day with almost unanimous support [from Republicans] in the Senate. And I think we’re going to get that in the House, too.”
House lawmakers took a rule vote mid-Wednesday afternoon, ahead of plans for final consideration of the resolution later in the day. A number of lawmakers in various factions of the GOP caucus appeared ready to vote for the rule, before voting “no” on the resolution’s passage. There were still three Republican defections on the rule itself: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio.
The holdouts include both vulnerable House Republicans in frontline districts who fear the political retribution that would follow cuts to Medicaid benefits, and hardline conservatives who say the plan does not do enough to address the federal budget deficit.
Wednesday’s vote on the Senate plan represents a significant departure from the House budget framework previously passed by the chamber in February.
The Senate plan calls for just $4 billion in spending cuts as a floor for the final resolution, though it allows for actual targets to be much higher. The House budge framework passed in February included targets for more than $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, which most nonpartisan experts said would need to include cuts to Medicaid.
Both chambers will vote on final passage of a combined budget framework in the weeks ahead should the House agree to the Senate’s framework.
“There’s a clear understanding between many of us and the speaker,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York told Punchbowl News. “We will not vote for something that takes away eligibility from our constituents, period.”
Still, Johnson was predicting confidence around midday, saying: “I think it is going to pass today.” His colleagues’ concerns, he conceded, were “real” but would be addressed and resolved during the reconciliation process, Johnson claimed.
The speaker is prone to taking risky votes in his chamber — even if they fail.
Republicans suspended business in the House just last week after a group of rebel members tanked a rule vote over Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s bid to allow proxy voting for new mothers.
Johnson also brought a bill to avert a government shutdown to the floor last September only to see it fail over a provision that would have implemented voter ID requirements ahead of the presidential election.
In some cases Johnson has also shown an ability to wrangle both the center-right and strict conservative wings of his caucus — including a handful of frequent malcontents — to get key pieces of legislation through the chamber. Republicans who voted him into office in 2023 did so after ousting his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, and then spending days searching for a new speaker. Johnson then swept away challenges to his re-election as speaker at the end of 2024.