A trio of moderate House Republicans are set to meet with President Trump at the White House on Wednesday, the latest huddle between the president and different GOP factions as the lower chamber prepares to pass his legislative agenda with its slim majority.
Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) — all of whom represent districts former Vice President Kamala Harris won in November — will attend the meeting, Bacon told reporters. The gathering is scheduled for 1 p.m., a source confirmed to The Hill.
“He likes meeting with everybody,” Bacon said of Trump. “You can tell, he sleeps four hours a day, he’s like non-stop on the phone… I think he wants to build that relationship.”
Bacon argued that the three Republican moderates helped the GOP conference clinch the House majority, delivering a trio of key seats. House Republicans started the 119th Congress this month with a slim 219-215 majority, which has since slipped to 218-215 after former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) left the House to serve as Trump’s national security adviser.
“Without us three we’d have a Democrat Speaker,” Bacon said. “So, we’re proud of that, we helped keep the majority, the three of us.”
Trump’s meeting with the three moderates is the latest instance of him gathering with House Republicans as the GOP trifecta looks to advance his legislative wish list. On Monday, his first full day back at the White House, Trump met with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other members of GOP leadership at the White House.
Before his inauguration, Trump hosted various groups of GOP lawmakers at Mar-a-Lago, including members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, committee chairs and members in favor of raising the deduction cap on state and local taxes (SALT).
Bacon declined to discuss the topics on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting, but it is likely to include the sprawling reconciliation package full of Trump’s priorities that Republicans are crafting.
Republicans are looking to use the budget reconciliation package to usher through Trump’s priorities, a process that allows the GOP trifecta to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate. In the House, however, they will need near-unanimity to clear the package in the closely divided chamber, a task that will be difficult in the ideologically diverse GOP conference.
Lawler in particular has emerged as a key voice throughout reconciliation deliberations: He is one of several lawmakers demanding an increase to the cap on the SALT deduction cap, and has warned that he and his colleagues will not support a package that meets their vision.
“Certainly there’s broad consensus that as members of the SALT Caucus, we will not support a tax bill that does not address the issue of SALT,” Lawler previously told The Hill.
