Tuesday was supposed to be a rah-rah day for House Republicans — a chance to strategize with President Donald Trump about their agenda for the tough election year ahead.
Instead, 2026 got off to an unexpectedly somber start as they confronted the sudden death of a well-liked colleague and pondered the dire political and policy straits their dwindling majority has to navigate.
Most members learned about California Rep. Doug LaMalfa’s overnight passing as they boarded buses outside the Capitol to head to the Kennedy Center for their annual policy meeting. That news — as well as word that another Republican, Rep. Jim Baird of Indiana, had been badly hurt in a car crash — cast an immediate pall.
“This is coming as a shock to all of us,” said one House Republican who, like others quoted for this story, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the mood.
Even a characteristically freewheeling speech from Trump — delivered at the performing arts center his hand-picked board had recently renamed for him without congressional approval — hardly lightened the mood. He remembered LaMalfa, a rice farmer who represented a rural northern California district for seven terms, as a loyal supporter and said he considered skipping the speech out of respect for his death.
“But then I decided that I have to do it in his honor,” Trump said. “I’ll do it in his honor because he would have wanted it that way.”
But reality soon set in that the House GOP would be facing challenges that went well beyond mourning. For one, LaMalfa’s death and Baird’s hospitalization represented another blow to their razor-thin majority, leaving many contemplating whether Republicans could ever muster the votes they would need to pass a laundry list of pre-midterm policy priorities.
LaMalfa’s death and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation this week left the GOP with a bare 218 votes for at least until early March. With Baird’s indefinite absence and the unreliable support of libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Speaker Mike Johnson has to confront a day-to-day struggle to maintain control of the House.
His leadership circle, for instance, quickly had to calculate whether they would have enough Republicans in attendance to clear a procedural vote Wednesday allowing them to pass on a critical government funding package and several other bills this week.
“We keep saying we are one breath away from the minority — that’s more true today than ever,” another House Republican said.
Trump’s 84-minute speech ultimately veered into myriad topics. He at one point commented on his own mortality and pushed back on reports about his aging and declining health, admonishing some Republicans in attendance for calling to check if he was “dead” last year after he was away from cameras for several days.
He also raised concerns about keeping the House majority next year — a topic that lawmakers and White House aides say is frequently on the president’s mind.
“They say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm,” Trump said. “So you’re all brilliant people: I wish you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public, because we have the right policy.”
He then proceeded to throw a bomb into those policy plans as Republicans struggle to address rising health care costs — a topic that’s become an albatross for the party after a bitter December fight over extending Obamacare tax credits that have now expired, raising premiums for millions of Americans.
The president directed Republicans to be “flexible” on abortion issues in ongoing health care talks — essentially asking many in his party to cross a moral red line by abandoning the longstanding ban on taxpayer funding for abortion known as the Hyde amendment.
The remark stunned House conservatives in the audience and those listening in the Senate.
“I almost fell out of my chair,” said one who attended the meeting.
“Everything depends on details, but Hyde is nonnegotiable for most conservatives,” added a senior House Republican aide. That person didn’t rule out a potential “creative solution” on the matter but said “caving on Hyde is not an option.”
Asked for his reaction on Capitol Hill, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said, “I’m not flexible on the value of every child’s life.” Others took it as an encouraging sign that Trump wants to notch a deal this month on an especially nettlesome election year issue.
But inside the House GOP policy sessions that followed the Trump speech Tuesday — touching on energy, housing and other issues — members continued to struggle with the way forward on their health care plans, according to six Republicans with direct knowledge of the conversations.
Many hard-line conservatives — who see abortion protections as an essential element in any health care legislation — would prefer Republican leaders pursue a party-line bill under filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation rules rather than cut a deal with Democrats.
Otherwise, according to two people with knowledge of the retreat discussions, key lawmakers ran through a well-known menu of legislative options — albeit one that is unlikely to offset the impact of the expired Obamacare subsidies before Election Day.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) discussed proposals to expand tax-advantaged health savings accounts, while Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) talked through potential overhauls to a key prescription drug program and bills that would crack down on intermediaries known as pharmacy benefit managers.
Trump directed House Republicans in his earlier remarks to work on so-called “most favored nation” drug pricing legislation — something he’s pursued in executive orders and deals with health care giants as he moves to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
But the issue is deeply divisive among Hill Republicans, and GOP leaders have continued to rebuff Trump’s attempts to attach it to numerous legislative vehicles — including the sprawling megabill Republicans passed this summer.
Senior GOP aides on Capitol Hill say they have plans to address drug prices via HSAs and other policies, but they are leaving it to the White House to promote the most-favored-nation and other direct drug pricing plans.
That, Trump said — along with being “flexible” on Hyde and “directly” giving Americans money to purchase coverage — would allow Republicans to “take away” the issue of health care from Democrats, Trump asserted at the House GOP meeting.
“You could own health care, figure it out!” Trump said.
But House Republicans privately acknowledged throughout the day Tuesday it’s far from that easy.
“We’re still far from a solution on health care,” one GOP lawmaker said.
Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
