Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) arrived at this week’s House Republican retreat with hopes of uniting the fractious GOP conference around a plan to pass President Trump’s agenda — but instead, the group is departing south Florida with rising tensions in its ranks.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a frequent critic of GOP leadership, wrote on social platform X early Wednesday morning that House Republicans “still do not have a plan on budget reconciliation and our Speaker and his team have not offered one,” urging top lawmakers to “just get started doing something.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who has expressed disapproval of Johnson’s leadership in the past, skipped the retreat altogether, announcing that he opted spend time with family and constituents in Texas “rather than spending $2K to hear more excuses for increasing deficits & not being in DC to deliver Trump’s border security $ ASAP.”
And the House Freedom Caucus, comprised of roughly three dozen hard-line conservatives, issued a call for “rudderless” Republicans to back their reconciliation proposal, which includes two bills — the opposite of Johnson’s single-measure track — and calls for a two year debt limit hike and deep spending cuts.
“Are you a Republican Member of Congress leaving Miami today feeling rudderless when it comes to reconciliation? Are you worried you may be dragged into a process that will cause you to break your America First campaign promises? Do you want a plan to unite Republicans and advance President Trump’s agenda? Don’t worry, there is a plan for you: the “218” plan!” the group wrote on X, re-upping its reconciliation proposal.
With House Republicans’ razor-thin majority, just a few frustrated conservatives would be enough to sink the package.
The bubbling irritation — and longing for a final blueprint — come as Johnson is eyeing an ambitious timeline to pass items on Trump’s wish list, including extending the 2017 tax cuts, enacting border and energy policy, and banning taxes on tips, social security and overtime. Republicans aim to pass that bill through a process known as budget reconciliation, which bypasses the Senate filibuster but would require near-unanimity among Republicans.
The Speaker has said he wants to pass a budget resolution, which unlocks the reconciliation process, by the end of February, then approve the sweeping package of priorities in early April.
The looming target dates are sparking a sense of urgency in the group.
“There is a feeling that we’re running out of time,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus member, told The Hill. “There’s a feeling that we’ve got to come together and whatever it takes to get the top lines done.”
Johnson told reporters last week, before departing for Florida, that Republicans would use their retreat “to make a lot of the really important final decisions we have,” predicting that there would be a firm game plan once the group returned from the trip.
Asked during a closing press conference at the retreat Wednesday if the conference had reached a consensus on the budget resolution, Johnson said it was his “objective” that when the group departed Florida it would “have a blueprint that will inform the budget committee for when they work on that budget resolution.”
Lawmakers, however, are still waiting for the official budget reconciliation target numbers, which will help direct committees when crafting their parts of the sprawling bill. Committee chairs and lawmakers discussed ranges on Wednesday, but some Republicans say they need a final figure.
“We’ll see the plan when we get the actual numbers,” Norman said. “Do we have a plan right now? No. But will we? Yes, and it’ll be sooner rather than later.”
One House Republican who attended the retreat said members are “eager” to see the final numbers.
“We have a general outline, there are some specifics in terms of money that we can save, but there is no set number for what the top line will be, and I think a lot of members are eager to hear what that is,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. “But we have a general understanding of where the savings will be coming from, which was good information.”
Johnson on Wednesday told reporters “we’ll be getting to that final number.” But he said he warned lawmakers that the level of cuts in the budget resolution will be a floor to give committees flexibility when crafting the ultimate package because of the strict rules surrounding budget reconciliation.
“My recommendation and my hope, my admonition to my colleagues here, is that we set a number that’s really a floor in what we hope to achieve by savings and not the ceiling,” Johnson said. “And there’s a lot of strategic reasons for that. So stay tuned for the number. It will be substantial because it has to be.”
As those figures start to emerge, however, some lawmakers are beginning to voice concerns.
During an interview on Fox News Wednesday afternoon, Roy said he was “receiving real-time updates” from his colleagues, which he was not pleased with.
“I got word this morning from the meetings, they put forward solutions that are not going to reduce the deficits. That is a nonstarter for me,” Roy said. “I’m on the team, but I’m on team Trump, team getting the solutions done to deliver spending restraint so that [Treasury Secretary] Scott Bessent can actually get deficits down as he said in his three-through-three plan, and as the president said in his own inauguration speech, we’ve got to get inflation under control. That means ending the tax of inflation. That means cutting spending.”
Johnson has consistently contended that the reconciliation process has included input from the entire conference, noting on Wednesday that 94 percent of the group — all but 14 members — have taken part in discussions regarding the package. Roughly 170 members of the 218-member conference were present at the retreat.
Roy has been a key player throughout the reconciliation talks, declaring that the final package needs to be deficit neutral to earn his support, calling that his “red line.” In a notable move, Johnson on Wednesday committed to doing just that.
“We’re committing that in this process anything we do is going to be deficit neutral at least and hopefully deficit reducing because we think we’ve got to change that trajectory,” he told reporters at a press conference.
But keeping the conference together throughout the arduous process of passing a reconciliation bill will be Johnson’s largest challenge, and his success will determine the fate of Trump’s agenda — making unity the key theme throughout the three-day retreat.
“The main takeaway that I hope we all understand is that our agenda is absolutely unstoppable if we remain united,” House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain (Mich.) said at the retreat’s closing press conference. “And you heard that from the leaders, you heard that from President Trump, you heard that from JD Vance. We are absolutely unstoppable if we stay united.”
“The president said it himself, and I quote, ‘Stay united and we will be remembered as the most successful Congress in American history,’” she added. “And he is absolutely right and we all know it.”
