House GOP struggles with reconciliation talks at retreat

By Nico Portuondo | 01/29/2025 06:27 AM EST

“If we fail on reconciliation, we’ve failed as a Congress,” said one high-ranking Republican who faulted some lawmakers for not showing up.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at the Trump National Doral Miami.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at the House Republican retreat in Florida. She said she did not get a "full sense of unity" on reconciliation. Joe Raedle/AFP via Getty Images

DORAL, Florida — House Republicans hoping for a Florida-inspired breakthrough on budget reconciliation were left instead with middling results Tuesday, including on energy and environment policies.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters at President Donald Trump’s resort here that lawmakers are still on schedule to release a “blueprint” for a budget resolution Wednesday, a necessary first step to jump-start the upcoming reconciliation process. Republicans hope to pass the party-line legislation focused on tax cuts, the border and energy in the next several months.

“When we leave, we plan to have a blueprint for the budget resolution that will unlock basically and begin the reconciliation process,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s exactly on the timeline that we planned, and we feel very good about where we are.”

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But even after a full day of negotiations Tuesday, most Republicans said they were not particularly close to coming to a consensus or even a general idea of what an eventual reconciliation package would look like, despite self-imposed deadlines.

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