MTG calls pressure to meet Trump's July 4 megabill deadline ‘a s***show'
Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential voice within Trump's MAGA movement, appeared on Steve Bannon 's War Room podcast on Tuesday and complained that Trump's July 4 timeline for passing the massive tax and spending legislation was arbitrary and 'not realistic.'
'It is really a dire situation,' Greene told Bannon. 'We're on a time clock that's been really set on us, so we have a lot of pressure. It's a s***show.'
The House narrowly passed a 940-page version of Trump's bill – which seeks to boost defense and border spending while making cuts to key welfare programs – back in May by 216-215 but it has since been heavily amended by the Senate.
The upper chamber only pushed through its draft with the help of Vice President JD Vance, whose vote was required to break a 50-50 tie after three Republican senators – Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine – broke ranks to side with the Democrats, effectively nullifying their party's majority.
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska almost joined the rebels but was ultimately persuaded to fall in line, albeit reluctantly.
Ahead of Wednesday's House session, Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Sean Hannity's primetime Fox News show and promised: 'We are going to deliver the bill by July 4. We've got a clear mandate to do this.'
But Greene is not alone among his representatives in raising objections to the pressure they are being placed under over the megabill.
Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, including chair Andy Harris and Ralph Norman, have also expressed their disquiet.
Likewise speaking to Fox, Harris said: 'This is not ready for primetime. We support the president's agenda. The president's agenda was not to raise the deficit three quarters of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
'The bottom line is now the House is going to have its say. This is not going to sail through the House.'
Norman called the bill 'an abomination' at a House Rules Committee meeting and said: 'What the Senate did, I'll vote against it here and I'll vote against it on the floor.'
Another unnamed House Republican told The Hill this week that conservative group chats were lighting up over the Senate's draft of the bill and asked: 'How did it get so much f***ing worse?'
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For more than an hour, the vote count was tied at 212 in favor and 212 against. Over the past few minutes, two more yes votes came in, bringing the total to 214 in favor – enough for passage. Nonetheless, the vote has not closed, and the House chamber is mostly empty, perhaps a sign that and other GOP leaders don't want to move forward to the next step, which is voting on the rule itself, because they have not swayed enough holdout votes. Updated at 11.36pm CEST
