“I think it’s more important that we get it right for the American people. Most Americans could care less what happens to the Freedom Caucus -- they only care about what happens to them, and as long as I keep my focus on them I’m in good shape," Meadows said.
Meadows was singled out as a holdout by Trump during a closed-door meeting with House Republicans Tuesday morning. He said that he later received two calls from administration officials, but hasn’t changed his mind on the measure.
‘Don’t Serve a Purpose’
A growing number of Republicans are questioning the mission of the Freedom Caucus with Trump in the White House.
“I’ve said they don’t serve a purpose any longer,” said Representative Chris Collins, a New York Republican and early Trump supporter. “They served a purpose on the far right to message to Barack Obama. It is now President Trump.”
On top of that, there’s been a growing perception among some lawmakers and congressional analysts that the caucus has simply lost its nerve.
“There’s a sense on the Hill that the Freedom Caucus always caves,” said Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution. “So caving this time would surely further diminish their leverage for future fights.”
Of course, the group’s reputation for ultimately yielding ground in past fights may say more about their limited power when Obama was in the White House -- and when every bill had to move toward the center to secure passage.
But for the caucus to fold again, said Binder, would provide another lesson that Republican leaders will draw that they can mold bills by picking off a few caucus members without having to engage the entire group.
Meadows said Tuesday that his group still has the 21 votes necessary to prevent the bill from passing. There are also several other pockets of holdouts in the caucus.
Same Goals
Representative David Brat, a Republican caucus member from Virginia, said that while Trump called him personally last week, he was still opposed to the bill. For him, the Freedom Caucus’s goals haven’t changed just because the president has.
They still “want to move this bill toward free market solutions, not the federal government running one sixth of the economy,” he said. “Everything’s exactly the same, same logic.”
But Collins said the Freedom Caucus should fold itself back into the 170-member Republican Study Committee, which it broke away from several years ago, and “join the team.”
“We are the governing body with the White House, the House and the Senate,” he said. “They are acting like a minority obstructionist group, which was fine when we were.”
Representative Richard Hudson, a Republican from North Carolina, said the Freedom Caucus will damage itself if it ends up blocking the measure, though he predicts most members eventually will come on board.
“How can they go back and face their constituents if they’re the reason we didn’t get the most significant entitlement reform in a generation, if they’re the reason we didn’t keep our promise of repealing Obamacare,” Hudson said. “It defies me to understand where they’re coming from.”
‘Prove It Can Govern’
Representative Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, said that the Freedom Caucus still has an important role to play in the conference, and credited them for the additions of two key changes to Medicaid, an optional work requirement and the option to states for block grants. But while the Republican party has proven that it’s a “very good opposition party,” it now has to prove it can govern, he said.
“If you accept credit for the improvements you’ve made, you have to take responsibility for the defeats you inflict, and it would be a great disappointment to me if we lost,” he said.
The RSC was also instrumental in pushing the two changes Cole cited, and that group’s chairman, Mark Walker of North Carolina, and other group members are now supportive of the bill.
Still, there is plenty of political cover if the Freedom Caucus does bring down the bill. A number of conservative groups have also come out against the measure, including Heritage Action and the Club for Growth.
“That’s fertile territory for Freedom Caucus members to stand pat at relatively little political cost,” said Binder.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.