Conservative WSJ scolds Republicans threatening to 'torpedo' Trump's agenda

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board took far-right House Republicans to the woodshed for threatening to blockade the Senate's budget framework, warning them that they were essentially derailing the very pro-Trump agenda they claimed to stand for.

This comes as the same board has gone after President Donald Trump aggressively for a huge new tariff regime the board sees as self-defeating. It also comes after months of infighting among the House and Senate Republicans over exactly how to implement Trump's desired vision for tax cuts, energy deregulation, and border security in a single, all-encompassing package almost certain to be voted on by party lines.

"Passing a budget outline is crucial to unlocking the Senate’s reconciliation process, which would allow a tax bill to pass the upper chamber with only 51 votes and thus escape a Chuck Schumer veto," wrote the board. "The House holdouts are complaining that the Senate’s bill is weak on spending cuts, and here’s what they mean. Such reconciliation bills include general 'instructions' to committees. The House, for example, directed Energy and Commerce to come up with $880 billion in savings, ostensibly to include Medicaid, but without policy details."

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These House lawmakers claim the cuts in the Senate bill are, by comparison, too small — but they're missing the point of how the budget process works, the board raged.

"Senate Republicans say they’ve merely set a floor on cuts, not a ceiling. The reason to write the bill this way is to comply with the Senate’s arcane budget rules and be sure the final legislation can clear the upper chamber without needing 60 votes," the board wrote. "In other words, nothing about passing the Senate budget outline amounts to caving on spending discipline. By the way, Senate Republicans even narrowly defeated an amendment to strip the House’s $880 billion Medicaid target, no thanks to big government Senate troubadour Josh Hawley, who voted for it."

Ultimately, the very House lawmakers complaining the most about spending could be the ones who ensure no discipline will be exercised on it, the board concluded.

"House Republicans have two choices this week. They can pass the budget outline and start writing the details of their spending cuts and larger bill. Or they can blow up the budget and spend more weeks engaging in political self-harm to the elation of Democrats," wrote the board. "The latter is a path to zero spending restraint and a $4.5 trillion tax increase. Pity Speaker Johnson for having to explain this basic reality so many times this week."