'Massive setback': Republican says GOP’s chances of passing big bill quickly slipping away

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was hoping that GOP lawmakers would be able to get President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed and onto his desk for signature by Memorial Day: Monday, May 26. But with GOP lawmakers fighting over the specifics, it's now looking like it could be months before something is passed.

On Friday, May 16, the House Budget Committee took a vote on the bill — and rejected it, 21-16. Several Republicans, including Texas' Chip Roy, Georgia's Andrew Clyde, Oklahoma's Josh Brecheen and Pennsylvania's Lloyd Smucker, joined Democrats in voting no.

MSNBC's Alex Witt discussed the vote with her colleague Ryan Nobles and GOP strategist Doug Heye after it went down. And Nobles stressed that the vote shows how much of a struggle it will be to get Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed.

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Nobles told Witt and Heye, "The final vote was 21 no votes, 16 yes votes — far short of the majority needed for passage. And Alex, make no mistake: This is a massive setback for House Republican efforts to pass this massive reconciliation package, which is basically the centerpiece of Donald Trump's legislative agenda. And what it does more than anything is it lays bare these real disagreements inside the House Republican conference that, at this point, appear to be immovable."

Nobles continued, "What we saw play out in this Budget Committee hearing was these deficit hawks, these hardcore Republican conservatives who view this opportunity that they have right now as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get the serious budget cuts that they are looking for. And they are running right into moderate Republicans in swing districts — many of these moderate Republicans in states like New York and California, who are, in many ways, the majority makers for the House Republican caucus, who are very concerned that these budget cuts will ultimately lead to harming their constituents and then them losing their elections in the 2026 midterms."

Nobles stressed that Republicans have a difficult road ahead of them in getting some version of the bill passed.

Nobles told Witt and Heye, "This was one step along what is going to be a very, very long process. No one thought that this budget that was going to be voted out of this committee today was ultimately going to be the end product, but the fact that they are having such a difficult time getting over this procedural hurdle is an indication of just how much more difficult this is going to be going down the road. Because at each step along this process, it gets harder."

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Heye commented that this struggle is "no surprise" in light of how "narrow" a majority Republicans have in the House.

Heye told Witt and Nobles, "Ultimately…. Donald Trump is the one who is going to have to get this across the finish line. It's not going to be the speaker. It's not going to be the majority leader, despite all of the work that they're doing working their members. I think Donald Trump would be much better served putting down the phone to tweet and picking up a real phone and calling those members who voted no in committee today, who voted no in previous committee hearings, and are the obstacles for him to get this through."

Heye continued, "Donald Trump needs to work this member by member. He needs to work it hard, and when you're tweeting about grandstanding and then tweeting about Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, you're not helping your cause. You've got to work your members relentlessly."

Watch the full video below or at this link.

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