Trump’s Screaming Call & G.O.P. Moderate Misery

Donald Trump
In recent weeks, during phone calls and visits to the White House, Trump has made clear to the swing-district bloc that he will support them if they support him, according to a person familiar. Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
Leigh Ann Caldwell
February 27, 2025

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.