DORAL, Fla. — Ebullient House Republicans gathered here this week at President Donald Trump’s eponymous golf club in sunny South Florida to toast the president, Vice President JD Vance and the party's takeover of the federal government.
But it's a question of when — not whether — the honeymoon will end.
During a three-day policy retreat at Trump National Doral Miami, Trump, Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other top Republican leaders largely avoided getting into the weeds of how they plan to pass a sweeping package that will be the centerpiece of Trump's legislative agenda or how to pay for it.
Instead, the focus was on party unity one week into their control of Washington. The conference was filled with sunshine, palm trees and pool time, with ample opportunity for lawmakers to spend time together in a casual setting, rather than in contentious debates over government spending and legislative procedure.
Vance’s message to rank-and-file Republicans during a roughly hourlong visit was “Let’s work together to get much needed work done. Let’s solve disagreements together as part of a team,” said Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who attended the closed-door meeting.
But with their paper-thin 218-215 majority — which is set to grow even smaller once Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations — the Republicans will have zero margin for error as they run a gauntlet of tricky issues: raising the debt ceiling, averting a government shutdown in March and passing a reconciliation package that includes renewing multitrillion-dollar Trump tax cuts, boosting energy and tougher border provisions.
When lawmakers return to Washington next week, Johnson said, the House Budget Committee will mark up a new budget resolution that will jump-start the reconciliation process, which would allow the GOP to try to pass its agenda without any Democrats. Once that’s passed by the House, committees of jurisdiction would begin drafting pieces of legislation for the broader package.
"Stay tuned on the specifics," Johnson told reporters Tuesday.
But the intraparty GOP fights seem to be bubbling just below the surface.
“Between the Senate, the House and the White House, there’s a large list of wants. Not everything is going to make it into the final package, and now we’re in the winnowing process,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., an ally of the speaker who is chairman of the Main Street Caucus, whose members call themselves “pragmatists.”
In addition, fiscal conservatives are demanding that deep spending cuts be included to help offset the ballooning cost of the package. But that could alienate some centrist Republicans like Bacon who face tough re-election races in 2026 — a midterm election year that isn’t expected to be favorable to Republicans given that they control the White House.
On top of that, Trump told lawmakers here that he doesn’t want them cutting two of the biggest entitlement programs, Medicare and Social Security, leaving Republicans fewer options to find ways to pay for their plans.
“We’re going to pay for it. In reconciliation, you can’t increase the deficit. It’s got to be paid for. The tax cuts, you know, that’s got a price tag. I think we will be paying for that,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.
“Look, we’re dealing with reality, not just emotions,” he said. “And so I’m excited about the next two weeks.”
Conservative Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said he and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., have been discussing tackling fraud in the Medicaid program. Greene chairs the House Oversight Committee's new “DOGE" subcommittee, of which Burchett is also a member.
“I think what we need to address is the fraud in there if we’re going to ever attempt to do anything,” Burchett said.
One way Republicans could pay for their proposals would be by restarting federal student loan repayments after President Joe Biden froze them for millions of borrowers, said Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., one of the leaders of the Main Street Caucus.
“Getting these loans paid back is one of the easier pay-fors, because we’ve been talking about it for a long time,” Flood told reporters. He added that some of the tougher pay-fors would include proposed cuts to nutrition programs and Medicaid.
“It will be interesting to see how far the membership wants to go as they explore that,” he said.
Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, a former chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, laid out the stakes of failure for the Republican Party.
"It is absolutely essential that we pass this reconciliation package that deals with the border, defense and then the tax cut extenders. If we fail to do that, we fail as a Congress," McCaul told reporters.
"I mean, the American people gave us a gift. They gave us a trifecta," he said. "If we don’t deliver back home, there will be consequences, and I think every member here needs to understand that the president’s made it clear that we need to deliver on this."
At a private discussion between the House GOP leadership team and rank-and-file members Tuesday, Mike Johnson talked about the importance of tackling reconciliation in a “single bill,” Bacon said.
It’s something the speaker has made the case for both publicly and privately, even as Senate Republicans leaders and some House conservatives are pushing to break reconciliation up into two bills. Trump has said he doesn’t care whether his agenda is passed in one or two bills — he just wants it done.
“We got to get that done, and we don’t want to get hung up on the budget process,” Trump told House Republicans on Monday. “Whether it’s one bill, two bills, I don’t care. Let these guys — they’re going to work it out. They’re going to work it out one way or the other.”
