“The House and Senate are doing a SPECTACULAR job of working together as one unified, and unbeatable, TEAM, however, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social.
“We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to 'kickstart' the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, 'ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.' It will, without question, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s endorsement comes less than a day after he said he would leave some social safety net programs including Medicaid intact during an interview with Fox News.
“Medicare, Medicaid — none of that stuff is going to be touched,” he told Fox News's Sean Hannity. “We won’t have to.”
But the House GOP’s strategy currently calls for finding $880 billion in savings from the committee with jurisdiction over Medicaid to pay for Trump's tax cut extension and border security priorities. Medicaid provides health care to 72 million low-income Americans. As of last year, about 37 million people were either enrolled in the Children's Health Insurance Program or were children on Medicaid.
On the campaign trail, Trump indicated an openness to making cuts to federal entitlement programs. In a March 2024 interview on CNBC, he said there was “a lot you can do in terms of entitlements in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements, tremendous bad management of entitlements.”
With the current makeup of the House, Republicans can only afford to lose one vote to pass the budget resolution, and two GOP representatives from districts that rely heavily on Medicaid have expressed apprehension on the proposal.
Republican Reps. David Valadao (Calif.) and Nicole Malliotakis (N.Y.) both told The Hill they are withholding support of the resolution pending more information about the cuts.
