The House Freedom Caucus is known for using disruptive legislative tactics to shift policy rightward, but its reputation has been under attack this year.
Members of the hard-line conservative group told The Washington Times that they are still “winning” and achieving policy aims despite suggestions that they have backed down from key demands.
“We push it as far as we can, and then we get the Trump agenda through,” said Rep. Keith Self, Texas Republican. “Because we’re going to vote for the Trump agenda, but we want the Trump agenda to be as good as it can be.”
Twice this summer, Freedom Caucus members publicly threatened to block legislation that was a House vote away from President Trump’s desk as they sought further changes.
The Freedom Caucus ultimately allowed a watered-down Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, carrying the bulk of the Trump agenda, and a Senate-passed cryptocurrency bill to clear the House without their demands being addressed.
Those decisions prompted ridicule.
“They put up a big fight and send out a bunch of fundraising emails on it and then end up folding and getting nothing. So I don’t think that accomplishes anything,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican and a former Freedom Caucus member.
Freedom Caucus members say they have negotiated deals with the Trump administration and Republican congressional leaders to achieve their goals through other means.
“If winning is folding, we’ll fold every time,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, Maryland Republican, said in an interview.
Mr. Harris was among a few vocal Freedom Caucus members who broadcast threats to oppose the Senate-altered version of Mr. Trump’s bill. They were angry that the Senate scaled back provisions to phase out clean energy tax credits and made other changes that added to the deficit impact.
A few holdouts held up a procedural vote on the package as they negotiated with Trump administration officials to secure a series of executive actions that would help them achieve their aims without requiring further negotiation with the Senate.
“The feeling was that if it went back to the Senate, it would come back even worse,” Mr. Harris said. “That’s probably not a risk worth taking.”
Three days after Mr. Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, he issued an executive order authorizing the Treasury secretary to “strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits” for wind and solar facilities.
Senate changes extended the timeline for phasing out the credits, allowing wind and solar projects to qualify if they begin construction within a year of the law’s enactment.
Mr. Trump’s executive order called for the Treasury and the IRS to ensure that the mandate is not circumvented by “restricting the use of broad safe harbors unless a substantial portion of a subject facility has been built.”
The IRS issued guidance on Aug. 15 that ends a “safe harbor” allowing investors to claim they have begun construction if they have incurred at least 5% of the total cost of the project and enforces a requirement for physical work to have started.
“This action — along with subsequent measures by the Departments of Treasury and Interior — executes a key part of the negotiations between Members of the House Freedom Caucus to build on the successful repeal of the Green New Scam in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, fulfilling a core promise of the 2024 campaign,” the Freedom Caucus wrote in a celebratory social media post.
Mr. Self said the Freedom Caucus negotiated “seven total” executive orders, most of which have yet to be made public. He and Mr. Harris declined to preview those. They said they agreed to let the administration roll out the executive orders on its own schedule.
“I believe that most of them will come to pass and there will be a lot of additional spending reductions on executive action,” said Mr. Harris, estimating that the orders could save hundreds of billions of dollars beyond the $1.6 trillion in spending cuts enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
That brings the spending cut total near the $2 trillion mark that the Freedom Caucus initially sought and gives members confidence that the law won’t add to the deficit when economic growth is factored into the equation.
“I remember going on the [Republican] retreat at the beginning of the term, and we were looking at around $300 billion in proposals of actual cuts and spending. And that just was not acceptable,” said Rep. Mark Harris, North Carolina Republican.
In the months after the January retreat, he said, the Freedom Caucus helped push that number upward and secured long-sought conservative policies such as work requirements for Medicaid, a provision barring Medicaid dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, and repeal of taxes on firearm suppressors and short-barreled rifles.
“When you look at the Big Beautiful Bill, you see the House Freedom Caucus fingerprints all over it,” Mr. Harris said.
Andy Harris of Maryland said a lesser-known victory that the Freedom Caucus secured in its last-minute negotiations over the package was a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, to hold a floor vote this year on a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.
Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, so Freedom Caucus members are under no illusion that the measure will pass. Still, they feel it’s an important symbolic vote, given Mr. Trump’s calls to balance the budget.
“This is part of the Trump agenda,” Mr. Self said. “We just need to take the temperature of the Republican Conference to see just how committed we are.”
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a caucus member who has been outspoken about holding down spending, announced in mid-August that he is running for Texas attorney general instead of seeking reelection to the House in 2026. Several other caucus members have decided to run for governor in their states or for the Senate.
After Congress enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in early July, the House turned its attention to three cryptocurrency bills, including the GENIUS Act, a Senate-passed bill establishing the first regulatory framework for stablecoins, a cryptocurrency designed to maintain value with the U.S. dollar.
The Freedom Caucus did not want the House to pass the GENIUS Act. Members feared the regulatory framework would create “a back door to a central bank digital currency,” Mr. Self said.
“That means that the federal government would have transparency into your finances,” he said. “China uses it. They’ve got a social credit score. They actually look at what you post online, what you say.”
Another cryptocurrency bill the House took up that week would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency or any similar digital asset.
The Freedom Caucus sought to amend that bill into the GENIUS Act or tie all three cryptocurrency bills together so the Senate would vote on them as a package to ensure the language against a central bank digital currency would become law.
To force a negotiation, nine members of the Freedom Caucus voted to block a rule needed to bring the cryptocurrency bills to the floor. Their action led to an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump.
Ultimately, they agreed to a compromise: The measure against a central bank digital currency would be added to the annual defense authorization bill because it is must-pass legislation signed into law for 60 straight years.
The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on their initial versions of the defense bill this month.
The Freedom Caucus’ negotiations over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the cryptocurrency measures showed more flexibility than in the past, which resulted in much of the criticism that they folded under pressure from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Harris of Maryland said those critics are comparing different dynamics. The Freedom Caucus had much more room to play hardball when Republicans were in the minority or had a larger majority during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Mr. Harris of North Carolina, who is new to Congress and the Freedom Caucus, said he never viewed the group as obstructionist. He said he joined because he felt they would work for the most conservative results possible.
“These were people that were very serious about fulfilling the promises that they ran on, the commitments they made to the people back home,” he said.
Since its founding in 2015, the Freedom Caucus has been united in pushing legislation further to the right. However, only a minority of its members have engaged in hardball tactics such as blocking bills from coming to the floor, which the chairman said is partly for strategic reasons.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican, said he has “a different style of trying to get things done” but is “very proud” of his Freedom Caucus colleagues who have used leverage to secure conservative victories for the American people.
“They go in and negotiate hard,” he said. “They win some, they lose some, but they’ve got a pretty good record.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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