Mike Johnson, House speaker: Chamber ‘on track’ to pass Trump’s budget bill by Memorial Day

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday he is confident House Republicans will overcome divisions to meet their self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for passing President Trump’s “big beautiful” bill through the lower chamber.

The sprawling measure faced another hurdle late Sunday as Republicans on the House Budget Committee looked to iron out lingering differences that led conservative hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus on Friday to hold up the bill’s progress.

“We’re on track, working around the clock to deliver this nation-shaping legislation for the American people as soon as possible,” Mr. Johnson said on “Fox News Sunday.”

The Louisiana Republican predicted the bill would advance through the budget committee and be ready for a vote in the House “by the end of the week.”

“So we meet our initial, our original Memorial Day deadline,” Mr. Johnson said.

The mega bill failed to pass the Budget Committee on Friday after five Republicans and all House Democrats voted against advancing the proposal.

The failure added to doubts about whether the bill will be voted on by Memorial Day.

Mr. Johnson can lose only three GOP votes in the House, giving him little wiggle room in the high-stakes negotiations.

The proposal seeks to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts. It delivers on Mr. Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on restaurant tips and overtime pay and increases spending on the military and immigration enforcement.

Cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and clean energy subsidies offset the bill’s cost.

“This is the vehicle through which we will deliver on the mandate that the American people gave us in the last election,” Mr. Johnson said. “You’re going to have historic savings for the American people, historic tax relief for American workers, historic investments in border security.”

“We cannot fail, and we’ll get it done for the American people,” he said.

Still, fiscal conservatives contend that the bill in its current form is front-loaded with spending that adds to the deficit and cost-saving measures are deployed only until after Mr. Trump’s presidency is over.

They want to see the enactment date of Medicaid work requirements sooner than the proposed 2029 start date and the phasing out of green subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, which are slated to continue until 2032.

Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania voted with their Democratic colleagues against advancing the measure out of the Budget Committee last week.

“We all want tax relief, particularly for hardworking Americans and small businesses, but I’m not going to get put over the barrel because everybody’s freaking out that we got to deal with the taxes,” Mr. Roy said. “Especially at the top end of the bracket and so forth if we’re not doing what we need to do on the spending.”

A faction of House Republicans from blue districts in New York, California and New Jersey is also pushing an increase to the state and local tax deduction caps, known as SALT.

Rep. Nick LaLota, New York Republican and a top SALT advocate, suggested over the weekend that allowing the tax cuts for the nation’s top earners to expire could help boost the bill’s chances.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is demanding Republicans fall in line.

“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’” Mr. Trump said Friday on Truth Social. ““We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” he posted on social media.

“STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!” he posted. “It is time to fix the MESS that [President Joseph R.] Biden and the Democrats gave us.”

The effort is playing out in the wake of Moody’s credit rating agency downgrading the nation’s credit rating from Aaa to Aa1, citing rising debt and interest payments. This action gives Democrats ammunition to use against the bill.

“If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is extended, which is our base case, it will add around $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade,” the credit rating agency said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, said the GOP bill “will result in a huge spike in the national debt.”

“So that’s why Moody’s is warning people that we’re going down this road, and it will have a direct harmful impact on every American, because what it will do is drive up interest rates,” Mr. Van Hollen said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent brushed aside the credit downgrade.