WASHINGTON — Defying opposition from within his ranks, House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted late Wednesday that Republicans would march ahead on their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package after a lengthy meeting at the White House with GOP holdouts who are refusing to back the bill.

Johnson and his GOP leadership team appeared confident they would be able to stick to their schedule and shore up GOP support for final passage late Wednesday or Thursday following last-ditch talks to salvage the “big, beautiful bill.” But next steps are highly uncertain.

“We’re excited that we’re going to land this plane,” Johnson, R-La., said back at the Capitol.

But as evening hours set in, the upbeat tone stood at odds with the unwieldy scene at the Capitol. The Rules Committee has been grinding through a marathon session, passing its 18th hour, as the process chugs along. Another Republican, Tennessee Rep. John Rose, announced his opposition to the GOP bill. And Democrats, without the votes to stop Trump’s package, are using all available tools and impassioned speeches to press their opposition and capitalize on the GOP disarray.

“We believe it’s one big, ugly bill that’s going to hurt the American people,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York as he and his team testified before the committee.

“Hurt children, hurt families, hurt veterans, hurt seniors, cut health care, cut nutritional assistance, explode the debt,” he said.

It’s a make-or-break moment for the president and his party in Congress. They have invested much of their political capital during the crucial first few months of Trump’s return to the White House on this legislation. If the House Republicans fall in line with the president, overcoming unified Democratic objections, the measure would next go to the Senate.

Trump had implored the lawmakers a day earlier at the Capitol to get it done, but the holdouts endured. It’s not at all clear what, exactly, was agreed to — or not — during Wednesday’s lengthy meeting at the White House. However, Johnson indicated afterward that Trump himself may be able to accomplish by executive actions some of the goals that Congress is unable to agree to in the legislative process.

One big problem has been the tentative deal with GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states to boost deductions for local taxes to $40,000. But that costly provision, running into the hundreds of billions of dollars, alarmed the most conservative Republicans, worried it will add to the nation’s $36 trillion debt.

For every faction of the slim House majority that Johnson appeases, he is losing others.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, said before the White House meeting he did not believe the package could pass in a House vote, but “there is a pathway forward that we can see.”

A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase federal deficits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.

Republicans convened the House Rules Committee hearing shortly after midnight, but Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline for House passage was slipping as lawmakers prepared to depart for the holiday.

At its core, the package is centered on extending the tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term in 2017, while adding new ones he campaigned on during his 2024 campaign.

To make up for some of the lost revenue, the Republicans are focused on spending cuts to federal safety net programs and a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

Additionally, the package tacks on $350 billion in new spending, with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon, including for the president’s new ” Golden Dome” defense shield, and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda.

The package title carries Trump’s own words, the ” One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”