(CNN) — House Republicans have taken a critical step to advance President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and border priorities through Congress, a major win for party leadership after quelling a conservative rebellion over the plan’s price tag.
The Thursday morning vote on the Senate’s budget blueprint – a key initial step in the long budget process – will eventually allow Republicans to muscle the president’s first big legislative measure over a Democratic filibuster. It capped a dramatic week for Speaker Mike Johnson, who was forced to call off plans for a vote just hours earlier after nearly 20 Republicans demanded a guarantee of steep spending cuts.
GOP leaders ultimately convinced them to back the plan for how, punting bigger – and more difficult – fights on spending for the coming weeks. It marked a win for Johnson, who has repeatedly relied on Trump to pass contentious bills that conservatives hate.
The speaker met with the last group of holdouts ahead of the vote Thursday morning, as he sought to avoid an embarrassing defeat from his conference. And Trump applied pressure, promoting his “big, beautiful, bill” on Truth Social and making calls to lawmakers.
The president celebrated the chamber’s move later in the day.
Rep. Ralph Norman told CNN that hearing from Trump, who had been in close contact with Johnson, helped to flip his vote.
“This has evolved over the last 24 hours. You’ve got the speaker, you’ve got the president, you’ve got [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Asked about the president’s promises, Norman said: “He was very encouraging. We’re not gonna have a deficit. We’re gonna have $1.5 [trillion] minimum.”
Ahead of the vote, Johnson and Thune sought to present a united front on how to move forward on Trump’s agenda. The pair delivered a joint statement aimed at assuring House conservatives the Senate would back the steep spending cuts that have been a massive sticking point.
“We are committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people, while also preserving our essential programs,” Johnson said unequivocally.
Thune, meanwhile, said that “our ambition in the Senate is we are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings.”
“The speaker’s talked about $1.5 trillion dollars. We have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum. And we’re certainly will do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible to see that we are serious about the matter,” he continued.
A number of Republicans wanted to see Thune agree to spending cuts and Johnson to protecting Medicaid despite those cuts. The question remained even minutes ahead of the vote whether the leaders’ commitments had been enough.
In a tense floor conversation, the speaker offered assurances to a group of centrist Republicans that the GOP would protect Medicaid in its future legislative agenda, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
Prior to the vote, Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise huddled with a group of about 10 conservative holdouts in a room just off the House floor, hoping to get final assurances they had convinced them to support the blueprint.
Following the talks, Johnson remained optimistic that he had broken through the logjam after around-the-clock negotiations Wednesday. “We got the votes,” he emphatically told reporters as he left the meeting to head to the floor.
After the vote, Johnson and other House GOP leaders celebrated their chamber’s adoption of the budget blueprint, but acknowledged that there is a tough road ahead as Republicans look to pass a sweeping legislative package.
“That was a big step, because that will allow us now to move forward to have our committees actually drafting the one big, beautiful bill,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of work ahead of us, and we’re really excited about that.”
“Every step of this process is going to be tough. We’ve said this from the very beginning,” Scalise added, telling reporters that “failure is not an option.”
CNN’s Lauren Fox, Morgan Rimmer, Veronica Stracqualursi and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.
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