DORAL, Florida — Vice President JD Vance told House Republicans in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that they should handle the debt limit on GOP terms.
A handful of members present took that to mean they should include it the GOP’s big party-line reconciliation package, according to two Republicans in the room.
But Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) said later that Vance wasn’t specifically talking about reconciliation, just a process to ensure the measure wouldn’t be resolved on Democrats’ terms.
Given internal divisions among Republicans over the borrowing limit, House and Senate GOP leaders are increasingly likely to incorporate a hike in a government funding negotiation with Democrats.
Vance also urged members to not get bogged down in minutia when writing a budget resolution, a first step in the party-line reconciliation process. Some Republicans took that as a directive to make the blueprint as vague as possible — targeting floors for spending cuts that can be altered later on in the process.
The people in the room said Vance’s bottom-line message to GOP lawmakers was: Fall in line and deliver on Trump’s agenda.
Afterward, some House Republicans had their own message: If only it were so easy.
“It is going to be a difficult next few weeks,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), a key negotiator who heads the Main Street Caucus.
The post was updated to include comment from Moore clarifying Vance’s remarks.