Update 4/10/25, 1:02 p.m. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) held a joint press conference Thursday morning announcing a potential deal over $1.5 trillion in cuts. The bill passed the House hours later by a 216-214 vote.

When House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) challenged Speaker Mike Johnson to a one-on-one debate over the budget plan, he meant it as a dare. But after weeks of arguing with his own party, a conversation with Democrats might be a pleasant change of pace for the Republican.

The Louisianan would certainly be practiced up after days of tense cross-talk over the framework to start delivering on the president’s agenda. For the GOP, there hasn’t been a break from those strained discussions, not even at Tuesday night’s National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) gala, where President Trump unleashed on his party’s holdouts for claiming the Senate bill doesn’t go far enough on things like spending cuts and deficit reduction. To the dozen or more conservatives who didn’t commit to backing the other chamber’s bill to unlock the reconciliation process, the president’s message was a biting one.

“We had a great meeting today. I think we are there,” he predicted. “But just in case there are a couple of Republicans out there: you just gotta get there. Close your eyes and get there. It’s a phenomenal bill. Stop grandstanding,” Trump insisted before explaining where the compromise could lead. “If we slash taxes on American workers and producers, our economy will soar, jobs will surge, manufacturing will boom, and our country will prosper like never ever before. We got to get this big, beautiful deal done. … The alternative is hell,” he declared.

“… And get it done now,” Trump urged, “don’t wait two weeks. Don’t wait two weeks. Bad things happen. Crazy things happen in politics, just get the damn thing done and stop showboating. A couple of people want to … ‘get a little bit more.’ A little bit more? You know what you’re going to get? You end up getting nothing. You end up getting a Democrat bill or worse.” But if the two chambers come together, the president predicted House Republicans will win “40, 50 or even 60 seats” in the midterms. “If we don’t get it done,” he warned, “because of stupidity or a couple of people who want to show how great they are, you just have to laugh at them or smile at them or cry right in their face,” Trump added sharply.

Even a gaggle of governors joined Team Senate in the budget wars, sending a letter of appreciation to the White House for the president’s insistence that the House move the process forward. As the chief executives of more than 20 states, they offered “gratitude for your support of the Senate’s amendment to the House Budget Resolution. … We, like you, understand that more must be done to fully implement the agenda for which millions of Americans voted to see realized,” the governors said. “In particular, Congress must deliver to your desk a reconciliation bill that reinforces your executive actions and codifies in permanent law policies to secure the border, unleash American energy, restore military supremacy, fight wasteful spending, prevent a debilitating tax hike on working class Americans, and prevent a debt default.”

By Wednesday morning, no one was ready to predict how the debate would go. While the vote on the rule (which must be adopted before the House votes on the bill) passed in the afternoon, it was only by the barest of margins. And as several conservative critics like Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) made clear, they voted for it out of “respect” for the process, not because they had intentions of supporting the overall bill. “I’ve got a bill in front of me, and it’s a budget. And that budget, in my opinion, will increase the deficit — and I didn’t come here to do that.”

Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) did his best to salvage the situation, empathizing with the conservative holdouts while still urging the House to get this train moving down the track. Doing his best to reassure House Freedom Caucus members, he vowed to stay true to the fiscal restraint that united them. “As we unlock the reconciliation process, we must hold fast to the principles established in the House’s budget resolution. If we do, we will preserve the blessings of liberty and prosperity for our children and grandchildren. If we don’t — and we shrink back and miss this moment — we will be the first generation of American leaders to leave our country worse off than we found it.”

But by the late afternoon, well past the scheduled 5:30 p.m. vote time, it was obvious that at least a dozen conservatives were still a solid no. A group of House Freedom Caucus members eventually marched across the Capitol to Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office, hoping to extract more concessions on spending cuts. Several minutes later, the group emerged. When asked if they’d reached an agreement, members offered little in reply. Instead, Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) responded to questions about whether he’d changed his mind by saying, “We travel as a group.”

That proved to be true later, when Johnson huddled with the same dissenters in his ceremonial office off the House floor. The speaker left the conversation, admitting to reporters that they’d made little progress. “I don’t think we’ll have a vote on this tonight,” he conceded, “but probably in the morning. We want everybody to have a high degree of comfort about what is happening here, and we have a small subset of members who weren’t totally satisfied with the product as it stands. So we’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate or add an amendment, but we’re going to make that decision.”

In other words, the leadership may be forced to consider Plan B, which could include scenarios like a formal conference session with the Senate (which Ohio Republican Jim Jordan has been suggesting) — or amending Thune’s version of the bill (and praying the Senate will take it up). They could add a rule that stipulates the final product won’t be put to a vote without $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. Either way, the clock is ticking. If the House doesn’t vote on Thursday, there’s a very real possibility that the two-week recess the chamber had planned will be cut in half so that Republicans can spend next week reaching some sort of consensus. To conservatives like Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), it would be worth it. “It’s better to get it right than to get it fast,” he reiterated.

In the meantime, Johnson is doing his best to calm everyone’s frayed nerves. “We are working through some good ideas and solutions to get everybody there,” he explained Wednesday night. “… This is part of the process; this is a very constructive process, [and] I’m very optimistic about the outcome of this one big, beautiful bill. And this is just one of the steps in getting there.”

Whether or not Donald Trump shares his patience is another story. “I wouldn’t want to be the person that stands in the way of the president’s agenda,” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) admitted.

The speaker, at least for now, insists the White House still has their back. “I stepped out to the side room over here and spoke with the president, told him exactly what we’re doing. He understands it. He supports the process. He wants us to do this right and do it well, and sometimes it takes a little bit more time to do that.”