Byron Donalds warns GOP ‘budget will not pass’ without $1.5 trillion spending cuts

Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds warned Republicans Friday that their upcoming budget package won’t pass unless it includes $1.5 trillion in savings.

The House passed a resolution Thursday largely along party lines to advance a budget blueprint for enacting crucial portions of President Donald Trump’s agenda after verbal commitments from Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to secure at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. Donalds said on “Mornings with Maria” that Republican “budget hawks” are drawing a hard line and will not support the forthcoming budget bill unless it includes the cuts.

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“I got to tell you the truth here. If $1.5 trillion is not the cut line coming out of the House, that bill is not going to pass. Because the budget hawks in our conference, people who care about mandatory spending cuts and reforms, have been serious about this consistently for the last couple of months,” Donalds said. “We have to cut mandatory spending. It is not an option for the future health of the United States. So for the House and for the Senate, let’s be clear right now. If you’re not cutting 1.5 trillion, this budget will not pass out of Congress.”

Donalds, who was endorsed by Trump in the 2026 Florida governor’s race, also outlined how he believes Congress can achieve the cuts.

“One, Social Security cannot be touched in budget reconciliation. So that’s off the table, can’t go there. There is waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid to the tune of at least $600 billion that can be trimmed out of Medicaid, potentially more if you get creative,” he said. “You have things like the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] tax credits under the Biden administration, those Green New Deal slush fund tax credits, you can cut a lot of stuff out of that. If you cut it all, that’s about $700 billion right there depending on the scoring, how that comes back from CBO [Congressional Budget Office].”

“If we’re not cutting spending in a serious way, that reconciliation package will not pass the house,” he added.

Johnson and Thune’s Thursday commitments to secure the cuts seemed to have been sufficient to persuade Republican holdouts to back the budget blueprint.

However, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday that she was “not confident” that Senate Republicans will ultimately deliver $1.5 trillion in cuts.

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