Four Republican fiscal hawks flipped their votes in the early hours of Thursday morning to advance President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill, allowing it to come to the House floor for a final vote in the lower chamber.
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Victoria Spartz (R-IN), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), and Keith Self (R-TX) backtracked after facing intense pressure from Trump, who worked the phones overnight, and from Johnson, who could be seen huddling with holdouts in the House chamber. Given his razor-thin majority, the speaker could afford to lose only three Republican votes, assuming all Democrats remained opposed.
The four lawmakers flipped their votes to “yes” around 3:20 a.m. after hours of the vote being open, with Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) being the sole GOP dissenter to vote against the bill. Their support means Trump’s legislation will undergo a final vote later Thursday morning.
Fitzpatrick, a centrist, provoked some surprise with his “no vote,” as he had given little indication he was prepared to block the bill. The Pennsylvania centrist bolted from the chamber after he bucked Johnson on the vote, as colleagues who tried to locate him reported the lawmaker had disappeared.
Johnson later said he held nothing against Fitzpatrick for his action.
“I talked with him at length. Brian is a very good and trusted friend, and he just has convictions about certain provisions of the bill — he’s entitled to that,” Johnson said, according to Fox News.
More surprising than Fitzpatrick’s vote was Massie’s stunning flip and the sudden change of heart of several other fiscal hawks. Massie first voted yes, then changed to a no, then concluded with a yea vote after saying he was confused about the difference between rule and final votes. The procedural rule vote overnight allowed the bill to advance to the floor for a final vote, where lawmakers will decide whether to get Trump’s marquee legislation across the finish line.
Massie had long railed against the bill over concerns it would raise the federal deficit, and reminded reporters on Wednesday of the “principled stand” he was taking.
“I have raised $400,000 from 4,500 donors in the last 10 days for taking this principled stand. So my life hasn’t been difficult at all,” the Kentucky maverick told NBC News in the Capitol, adding that he’s “not concerned” that Trump and his allies might come after him politically.
“They’re whipping this horse, because I’m out of the barn, to keep the other horses in the barn,” Massie said, predicting that while other holdouts such as Spartz, Clyde, and Self might “cut a deal for something,” he doubted there was “a deal that I would make.”
Spartz, who had also expressed concern that the Senate-passed version of the bill affected the national debt negatively, flipped after saying Wednesday she planned to back the bill if it made it to the floor for final passage while promising not to vote in favor of the rule.
“I’ll vote for the bill, since we need to make it happen for our economy & there are some good provisions in it. However, I will vote against the rule due to broken commitments by @SpeakerJohnson to his own members,” she wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Self flipped after saying that “we made some progress on some fiscal issues,” in comments to Punchbowl early Thursday morning.
The four holdouts reversed after Trump called them in the wee hours of Thursday morning, per the Hill, as the president worked the phones to crush even serial rebel Massie’s opposition.
When he wasn’t making phone calls, Trump was shooting off fiery posts on Truth Social demanding that lawmakers cave.
“Largest Tax Cuts in History and a Booming Economy vs. Biggest Tax Increase in History, and a Failed Economy. What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove??? MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!,” he wrote.
“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!,” the president added in another post.
Meanwhile, Johnson was seen huddling with the holdouts to try to flip their votes as he was observed holding animated discussions with lawmakers like Clyde.
HOW TRUMP’S ‘ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ PASSED IN THE SENATE WITH KEY MURKOWSKI FLIP
The speaker said he had worked with Trump to get the bill pushed through, telling reporters he’s talked to Trump “multiple times today, tonight, this morning.”
“I mean, he was up engaged as late as 1 am. He may still be up for all I know. He doesn’t really sleep a lot,” he said.
