President Donald Trump met with the entire House Republican Conference on Tuesday and delivered a strong message—namely, that the time for negotiations on the budget reconciliation bill is over.
A number of House Republicans leaving the meeting said that Trump cautioned fiscal hawks against pushing for major reductions in Medicaid and cautioned blue state Republicans against pushing for a higher cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
There are three major factions Republican leadership must win over in the House—fiscal hawks, Medicaid moderates, and advocates of a higher SALT cap.
“He doesn’t want to increase SALT. He said, Medicaid—leave it alone unless there is waste, fraud and abuse. And we have found waste, fraud, and abuse, so we will be taking care of that, but we are not cutting Medicaid … . And the president’s very serious about this,”…
