Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill today, in an attempt to browbeat his fellow Republicans into supporting a budget bill. Speaker Mike Johnson has his own self-imposed deadline of passing the bill this week, before Memorial Day. Whether this plan succeeds or not is still very much in doubt, however.

The next step may happen in the dead of night, as the Rules Committee is scheduled to meet and vote on the revised bill at 1:00 A.M. tonight (or, technically: "Wednesday morning"). Post-midnight legislative meetings are pretty unusual, obviously, and if the vote doesn't succeed then the Memorial Day deadline will likely not be met.

Trump met with the Republicans for over an hour today, but it's unclear whether he moved the needle much by doing so. As is his wont, he threatened any holdouts with being primaried, but even this may not be enough leverage. One in particular who was called out by name multiple times by Trump, Thomas Massie, left the meeting stating that the threat of a primary challenge is "not consequential to my vote." Other Republicans expressed skepticism that Trump's pep talk had changed anyone's mind.

When the bill gets to a floor vote in the full House, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes. And (as I discussed yesterday) it's not just a matter of keeping one faction on board, there are in fact multiple groups of Republican House members who have major problems with the bill as it is written -- and some of these groups are in direct opposition with other factions. This makes Johnson's job a tough one, since he can't just sprinkle a few legislative goodies in the bill at the last minute to get everyone on board. Anything he gives one faction will be seen as a further betrayal of a differing faction's agenda.

At this point, Trump doesn't really care what makes it into the bill and what doesn't -- he just wants a big legislative success. So far, he really hasn't had much of any legislative accomplishments to brag about, even with the GOP holding both houses of Congress. This bill is the one thing that they can pass without Democratic votes, since budgets are not subject to Senate filibusters. In fact, this could be the sole legislative achievement for the entire year, which is why the stakes are so high. It's also why Trump wants a win so badly -- because if the effort bogs down and starts missing (self-imposed) deadlines, it will send the message to the country that Republicans are incapable of getting much of anything done even with their majorities.

Trump -- and at least one of the GOP factions -- already knows he's going to have a messaging problem with one of the biggest parts of the bill, since as it is currently written it will wind up kicking over seven million people off of Medicaid (7.6 million will lose Medicaid coverage and another million will lose their Affordable Care Act coverage). Trump, true to form, is trying to have this both ways at once. Today he claimed Republicans are "not touching" Medicaid (he even shouted out to reporters: "No cuts to Medicaid!"), which is patently ridiculous (since the bill does indeed have Medicaid cuts, to the tune of $700 billion). Trump tries to square this circle by saying that these massive cuts are all somehow "waste, fraud, and abuse," which is also ridiculous. But that's going to be the party line -- they didn't cut Medicaid, they just fixed it, that's all.

This could be the biggest issue in the midterm elections next year, it is worth pointing out. And the Democratic ads will just write themselves, pretty much. Pete Buttigieg (sporting his new beard) just released a video previewing what the Democratic message will be. He begins this video with a list of what the Republican budget will do:

One -- Add trillions of dollars to the national debt.

Two -- Cut taxes for the wealthy.

Three -- Kick millions of Americans off of Medicaid.

That's a pretty easy-to-understand political argument to make, especially since Buttigieg tailored it to be all-inclusive:

[Pete] Buttigieg, speaking straight into the camera in a video posted on X, called on viewers to contact their representatives and "ask them if they're going to keep the promises that they made earlier this year not to cut Medicaid."

"This bill is bad policy no matter which part of the political spectrum you come from," Buttigieg added. "Most conservatives I know hate the idea of adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. Most liberals I know are especially troubled by the idea of more tax cuts for the wealthy. And most Americans I know understand that kicking millions of people in this country off their health care is just wrong."

This argument will doubtlessly be deployed by many Democrats who are running to flip Republican seats -- especially in districts which have a high percentage of people on Medicaid. And Republicans will be out there adding insult to injury by telling all those millions of people: "We consider you to be a fraudster, or an abuser of the system, or we just think providing you with healthcare is a waste of money." Republicans now think it is brilliant messaging to just dismiss all their massive Medicaid cuts as "waste, fraud, and abuse," but in the end this framing may come back to haunt them when they are confronted with what it actually means to real people who lose their health coverage.

Trump may succeed in browbeating the House Republicans into voting for the bill, although even that much is not yet guaranteed. If it does pass the House, it will head over to the Senate, where changes will be made. Even if the Senate Republicans remove some of the provisions of the bill, however, the House Republicans will already be on record supporting them (whether they make it into the final bill or not, in other words). And their Democratic opponents will be reminding the voters of this fact throughout the campaign.

"Republicans added trillions of dollars to the national debt and threw millions of people off of Medicaid, all so they could give Elon Musk and his billionaire buddies a big fat tax cut." As I said, the ads pretty much write themselves.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant