Trump Called GOP Rep. Who Was ‘Firm No’ on House Budget, ‘Fuming’ and ‘Screaming’ to Change Her Vote: Report

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Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) was a “firm no” on the House budget resolution until she got a phone call from President Donald Trump in which he was “fuming” and “screaming” at her, reported Puck’s Leigh Ann Caldwell.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) managed to get the bill passed on Tuesday after a few stumbles, initially cancelling the vote and then calling House members back for a roll call. The final vote was 217-215 mostly along party lines, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) as the lone Republican holdout.

Originally, it looked like Spartz would be joining Massie, who said the “insane” bill would “increase the deficit” and was “not really cutting spending.” The Indiana congresswoman — with a long track record of volatility and battling her own caucus over spending issues — tweeted on Tuesday morning that the House budget plan would “[m]ake [the] deficit even worse” and failed to address the “TRILLION [dollars] hidden in automatic spending.”

Hours later, Spartz changed her tune and voted aye.

Caldwell’s article described how Spartz moved from a “firm no” to marching in line with her fellow House Republicans after a call from a “fuming” and “screaming” Trump:

Representative Victoria Spartz, among the more chaotic and least predictable Republicans, had been a firm “no” on the House G.O.P. budget framework last night when she received a phone call from Donald Trump. He was fuming. In tandem with two colleagues, the Indiana congresswoman had forced the conference to hold off voting on Speaker Mike Johnson’s blueprint for Trump’s tax and spending agenda—they just didn’t have the numbers to pass it without her. Spartz, sitting in the Republican cloakroom, took the call, and others could clearly hear the president’s voice screaming out of the speaker. She was a fake Republican derailing his agenda, he yelled. He was the president, he reminded her.

Spartz acquiesced, and Republican leaders called the vote again. “You know what you have to do,” Johnson told her, patting her on the back as she walked out of the cloakroom and onto the House floor. (Spartz posted that she’d changed her vote because Trump had committed to “save healthcare.”) Soon after, the blueprint passed, with Kentucky libertarian Thomas Massie as the lone Republican holdout. Rep. Warren Davidson, also initially a “no” over an unrelated spending guarantee, relented after receiving a Trump call of his own.

The Puck chief Washington correspondent added more details about her reporting in a tweet, writing that “[o]thers in the cloakroom could clearly hear” Trump’s voice “screaming” at Spartz and the phone was on speaker:

Spartz has denied Trump screamed at her, calling Caldwell’s article a “[c]razy blatant lie” and “sham.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), one of Trump’s most loyal congressional acolytes, posted her own tweet saying it was an “outright lie” that Trump yelled at Spartz, insisting that her colleague “went into a booth and had a private call” with Trump and “[n]o one heard their conversation.”

This article has been updated.