House Republican leaders were preparing for defeat Tuesday night when they were forced to call off a vote on a resolution intended to serve as a framework for a massive bill to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Minutes later, however, a stunning about-face brought lawmakers sprinting back to the nearly empty House chamber. GOP leaders celebrated a narrow victory soon afterward, with the resolution being adopted in a 217-to-215 vote, with just one Republican voting against it.
It was a stark departure from the situation hours earlier when several GOP lawmakers – Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Thomas Massie, R-Ky. – all signaled that they would oppose the bill.
Several people who have spoken with Fox News Digital in the days since then have credited Trump with getting the bill across the line. Trump had lengthy phone calls with both Burchett and Spartz on Tuesday, Fox News Digital was told.
‘He answered my questions,’ Burchett told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. ‘He’s very persuasive.’
One person who is familiar with the discussions told Fox News Digital that Trump had spoken with Burchett for 15 or 20 minutes on Tuesday afternoon and that the discussion was cordial.
Later, Spartz could be seen on the phone in the House Chamber during an earlier, unrelated vote.
Another source who spoke with Fox News Digital said that Spartz had asked to speak to Trump before she could support the bill and wound up having two calls with him.
Spartz declined to tell reporters how many times she had spoken with Trump and denied a Puck News report that the president had screamed at her over the phone.
‘It’s a complete lie,’ Spartz said.
A third source credited House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., with helping to get Spartz over the line as well.
‘Things got very emotional’ on the House floor as leaders focused their efforts on Spartz for roughly an hour, the source said.
‘Tom was really able to reassure Victoria that everything was OK. People weren’t mad at her. He just knows what to say,’ the source said.
But the earlier, unrelated vote had been held open for 45 minutes past its 15-minute window, and lawmakers were getting testy at being kept in limbo. A vote that was meant to be third in the series was second instead and had also wrapped up.
Meanwhile, three Democrats who had been absent earlier in the day returned in dramatic fashion – Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., with her newborn infant, Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., using a walker just after knee surgery, and Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., who had returned for the earlier votes – until Republicans saw they could only lose one GOP lawmaker and still pass the bill.
But Spartz had been convinced. Just after the vote was called off, she told House Republican leaders she would support the resolution if it were to come up for a vote the next day.
Instead of delaying the vote for another day, however, GOP leaders made a split-second-play call to rush lawmakers back to the House floor.
It angered Democratic leaders, who sent a message to their own caucus: ‘House Republicans are trying to jam through their Budget Resolution after assuring House Democrats that there would be no further votes this evening.’
Ten minutes later, the vote was back on, and lawmakers on both sides were rushing back to the House Chamber.
Burchett voted for the bill, and Spartz followed suit. Davidson, who also voted yes, said he had done so because he had gotten assurances from House GOP leaders about the March 14 government-funding deadline.
‘I voted ultimately . . . once I received the assurances I need that there would be actual cuts to discretionary spending. And, you know, everything about this is avoided,’ Davidson told reporters.
But a GOP lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital credited Trump with rescuing the bill due to his persuasion of Burchett and Spartz.
When reached for comment, a White House official told Fox News Digital that the resolution had been on life support until Trump saved it.
‘As a master dealmaker, President Trump is always active in negotiations on Capitol Hill, and the budget bill was on life support until President Trump urged Members of Congress to pass it,’ the White House official said. ‘The House and Senate must ensure that the final product encompasses all of the president’s priorities, but the budget passed this week was an extremely positive step towards one big, beautiful bill that puts America First.’
A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., referred Fox News Digital to his comments after the vote: ‘This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it. And this is the first step in that process.’
Fox News Digital reached out to Spartz’s office but did not receive comment by filing deadline.