GOP centrists borrow hardliner tactics to sway Trump agenda

Speaker Mike Johnson’s agenda has been repeatedly seized by a group of GOP hardliners who have used the party’s razor-thin margin in the House to score their own political wins.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s agenda has been repeatedly seized by a group of GOP hardliners who have used the party’s razor-thin margin in the House to score their own political wins. Now, Republicans from the party’s center are prepared to try the same. As Congress returns Monday to the enormous task of drafting President Donald Trump’s first policy package, Johnson will be hearing an earful from an even larger faction of his conference with big red lines on the bill: the middle. And those GOP centrists insist that unlike in past votes, they won’t be the ones forced to swallow whatever leadership puts to a floor vote. “There is a strong and loud group of us that are not going to be bullied into supporting something that we don’t agree with,” Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, whose 2022 upset helped propel Republicans into the majority, told CNN. “The only reason we have the gavels is because of folks like me.” Many of these members — a loose coalition of several dozen centrists, purple seat and pro-governing Republicans — told CNN they are tired of the House GOP’s longtime playbook in which right-wing members have refused to compromise and, in effect, have cornered Johnson into supporting their own ideas. And they say the stakes are even higher now, as Republicans prepare for a potentially difficult 2026 midterm cycle that some already fear could wipe out their House majority. Their biggest concern now is preserving benefits for Medicaid, which has become a target of party fiscal hawks as they seek to cut at least $1.5 trillion from government programs — a large chunk of which must come from federal health programs. But the centrists have plenty of other priorities, from federal nutritional programs to state and local tax deductions to clean energy programs — and policy fights are about to come to a head in the House in the next month.