Donald Trump suffered an embarrassing defeat on Friday after conservatives blocked his major domestic policy bill from advancing out of the House Budget Committee.
Five Republicans on the committee joined every Democrat in a 16-21 vote to sink a key vote on advancing what Trump calls his “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that encompasses his domestic legislative agenda.
The five Republicans are:
- Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)
- Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.)
- Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.)
- Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.)
- Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.).
The holdouts argue that the legislation does not go far enough to slash federal spending. Among the demands conservative members have made are implementing new Medicaid work requirements and accelerating the rollback of green energy tax credits
“This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Roy said during the meeting, adding that “this bill has backloaded savings and has front-loaded spending.”
Clyde said the bill “falls short” and “substantive improvements are needed.”
“Sadly, I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out,” Norman said.
Smucker, who changed his vote from yes to no in a procedural move explained his decision in a post on X/Twitter.
“To be clear—I fully support the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). My vote today in the Budget Committee is a procedural requirement to preserve the committee’s opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB,” Smucker wrote on X.
