‘He’s Not a Micromanager’: A Republican Leader on How Trump Runs a Meeting

Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team spent most of Thursday huddled in the White House, trying to get President Donald Trump to strike a deal between conservatives and moderates so they could move forward on their legislative agenda.

One of the key players in the room was House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain, the newest member of the House leadership team. That role has typically been to shape the GOP’s message. It’s a tricky job when Trump is in the White House — or posting at all hours of the night on social media — but the Michigan Republican says she shrugs it off.

“Donald Trump is very unconventional,” she said in an interview withPlaybook Deep Dive. “I think what he does a lot of times is he throws a lot of stuff, mud, at the wall, so to speak, to try and come up with different ideas, out-of-the-box thinking to get us out of the mess that we’re in. We need to embrace that because that’s who we elected.”

McClain also said she was optimistic about clinching a deal within her conference on a reconciliation plan, though so far, House Republicans haven’t gotten there quite yet.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity by Deep Dive Producer Kara Tabor. You can listen to the full Playbook Deep Dive podcast interview here: 

Listen to this episode of Playbook Deep Dive on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You’ve got warring factions in the House Republican Conference: conservatives who want to see upwards of $2.5 trillion worth of cuts, and some centrists and other Republicans who are more concerned about keeping the House and don’t want to go that steep. The hope with this meeting was that Donald Trump would be sort of a referee and bring people together. Do you have a deal?

I would say yes. The reason why I am a titch hesitant is we just have to verify a couple factors. If those factors turn out to be true, then I would say yes, we have a deal. [On Thursday night, Johnson told reporters that Republicans would be working through the weekend to try to finalize a budget framework.]

So that means you have basically —

Well, let’s take a step. Not to get too far in the weeds, but in order to get reconciliation, we have to first start with a budget resolution, which really unlocks the ability to begin the reconciliation process.

It’s got to pass.

It’s got to pass.

And the two really do go hand in hand. And look, we all campaigned on the “government spends too much money.” They do. But when it gets down to the rubber meeting the road, we all have certain things that are extremely important to us and that might be red lines for us. And a great example of that is SALT [tax deduction]. That’s one of the issues for the New Yorkers, the Californians. That’s very important for them. The Senate doesn’t even have a SALT caucus. But that’s very important to us or some members here.

We have a very diverse conference. That’s a good thing. That doesn’t make it super easy, though, when you’re trying to do spending cuts. But it was extremely productive. We hashed a lot of things out and everyone gave a little bit. We have a true leader in the White House with Donald Trump. He knows what he wants. He can articulate what he wants and he’s willing to sit there and put the time in to negotiate to get what he wants and what he campaigned for, and truthfully, what we all campaigned on for the American people.

Paint a picture for us. Is he sitting there in the Oval Office with a marker board and adding things? Actually, I can see Chip Roy doing that. But what does this five-hour meeting look like? 

It’s very much like a business meeting. I was 35 years in business. Donald Trump is a businessman. He sees the world through an economic lens, I would say. He definitely has command of the room. There is absolutely no question about that. But he talks and tells you what’s on his mind. He starts with the end in mind. So he wants his Trump tax cuts permanent. He goes through “I want no tax on tips.” He goes through the end result of what he wants everything to look like. And then we start with, “All right, here’s where we’re at today. Here’s what I want. Now, how do we get there? And where’s the negotiation? Where’s the give and take in the middle?”

So he’s very clear about what he wants. He gives us a lot of latitude on how to get there. He’s not a micromanager, but he is very clear on his expectations.

Did he push people like, “Come on, you got to get to yes”?

Yeah, I would say he pushed people in a very positive fashion. And you can either use the carrot or you can use the stick.

And he’s got a big stick.

He’s got a big stick, but he doesn’t use it. That’s not his go-to strategy. That’s not what I’ve experienced. In my experience, he listens. You have to have facts. You have to be able to articulate why what you’re saying makes sense. It’s not like “Well I feel like.” He’s not into that. He’s like, “Give me an example of what you mean. Tell me how that affects the end result? What’s the positive of that? What’s the negative of that?” You work through the details, but you’ve got to know your stuff.

In your new job as conference chair, you’re basically in charge of making sure Republicans are all singing from the same song sheet. Do you feel in this job that you have to be more guarded now that you’re a member of leadership? 

That will never be me. I’m just not good at that. I think if you’re honest, truthful, genuine, transparent, if you just are who you are, no, I don’t think you need to be guarded. Just tell the truth.

Speaking of messaging and how you craft your narrative, Donald Trump himself is often driving the headlines. I remember during his first term, we would always ask people, “What do you think of what he said?” And it was “I didn’t see the tweet.” 

How do you do your job when you have no idea sometimes what the president is going to say? 

It’s interesting, let’s just say that you go from Joe Biden who, you know, goes to sleep at 5 and never does any press to Donald Trump that has his own Twitter account.

At one in the morning.

At one in the morning. I mean, literally, I’ve been in meetings and I’ve walked out and a reporter will say, “What do you think of what Donald Trump — ” and I’m just like “I have no idea what he said.” Now we have a good staff, I have a good team, and they do a really good job of keeping me up to date on everything. But if you take a look at what he’s doing, this is the context in which I put it in.

Donald Trump is very unconventional. And I think what he does a lot of times is he throws a lot of stuff, mud, at the wall, so to speak, to try and come up with different ideas, out-of-the-box thinking to get us out of the mess that we’re in. We need to embrace that because that’s who we elected.

I’ve noticed here in the House Republican Conference that there seems to be disagreement about the future House majority. I’ve talked to not just conservatives, but some lawmakers who want to see steeper budget cuts because they think now is the shot, “We are going to lose the House and the House is already gone.” And then you have some Republicans who say, “No, no, no, hold up. We can actually grow the majority if we’re careful.” And they want to take a very different tack. 

Do you think the House is potentially lost and you have to lean in as much as you can right now, or do you not really buy that?

I don’t buy that. And I don’t really understand just because history says normally you lose seats in the midterms.

I think Donald Trump is such a game changer as the president. No one when I was campaigning — and I was around the country — no one predicted, maybe he did, that he was going to win the electoral vote, the popular vote, and win by as much as he won.

He’s one of the most out-of-the-box presidents that we’ve had. That’s why I don’t buy into it. I think the left has pushed their progressive policies so far, the pendulum has swung so far — and they’re not learning from it, by the way — that I don’t believe we’re going to lose in the midterms, because I think America wants to get back to traditional American values. They want to get back to America first, American exceptionalism. They want to get back to make sure that they know what’s going on in their kids’ lives, at school.

I don’t think we’re going to lose in the midterms if we can deliver on the promises, whether it’s the border, whether it’s energy independence, whether it’s reducing spending, inflation, economy. I think we’re poised really well. And that’s why this reconciliation is so critical, because if we do it right or when we do it right, it’s going to be ugly and it’s going to take longer than people wished. But if we get it right, it could be transformational for decades to come.

What do you think that balance is in terms of the number for cuts? Because if you go into the two and a half trillion for cuts, for instance, we could be talking about things that impact everyday Americans, which frontliners would be concerned about. Is there a number that you think is the sweet spot where conservatives are getting what they want in terms of maybe slowing the curve of the deficit?

There’s definitely some people that if we’re on a diet and we want to lose 25 pounds, there are some people that want to lose 25 pounds in the first week. There are other people that are OK losing a half a pound, and therein lies the balance. I don’t know if it’s a number per se as long as we’re cutting spending and there are real cuts. What I don’t think anyone wants to see is all the gimmicks. The budget gimmicks.

I thought Republicans were going to use gimmicks. They’re not going to use gimmicks?

I think you’re going to see some real cuts. But it’s not just cuts. It’s waste, fraud and abuse. Like what is the matter with going in and cleaning up Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security? Or what is the problem with going in and cleaning up those payrolls?

So that people are not getting the benefits who shouldn’t be getting them?

If you’re 150 years old collecting Social Security, there might be a problem on that. What’s the matter with going in and doing an audit of these programs? I mean, you go through your credit card or you should go through your credit card every month to see if there’s any fake charges on there and then if there are, what do you do? You call and you get them taken care of. That’s the same thing we’re doing. So it’s not just the cuts. It’s taking a look at making sure we’re getting value for our dollar.

I have talked to Democrats who think that their own party is making a mistake in leaning so hard into going after Elon Musk. But there has been polling by one of the Democratic outside groups that showed that Elon Musk’s popularity is actually under water in a lot of swing districts. I know he is a MAGA darling and you guys like what he’s doing, but is there at all a concern that he could actually hurt your frontliners if he goes too far?

I don’t think so. But let me explain why. What Elon is doing is exactly what everyone campaigned on: getting rid of the waste, the fraud, the abuse. Making sure that we are good stewards of hardworking taxpayers dollars. He’s doing that. If you frame the issue in that way, how is that going to hurt the frontliners? I don’t see how that does.

If all of a sudden you have news stories where some school program’s not getting some sort of grant funding for Head Start, disabled kids or something like this.

Well, let’s wait and see. Let’s not fear monger until we get there, because there’s a lot of what-ifs, scenarios. You know, what if I was a six-foot-two blond supermodel? Okay, that’s great, but it’s never going to happen. Well, maybe the supermodel part.

These days you can pretty much do anything with modern medicine.

But I find it rather funny that they are very upset with Elon Musk. But they weren’t upset with John Kerry when he was this Green New Deal appointed, unelected bureaucrat. Where was the outrage for John Kerry? Did I miss that? I think I missed that.

Speaking of Elon, he and Trump have been obviously slashing the workforce, and a lot of Republicans love this. But there is one issue here that I would think Republicans perhaps don’t love. And that is this notion of going around Congress’ authority on spending. 

Number one, is that at all a concern for you? And number two, could you guys regret this when you have a Democratic White House and you’re trying to pass appropriations bills and a Democratic president says, “Well, thanks, but no thanks, I’m going to spend money the way I want to”?

Slashing the workforce — I don’t know that I agree with that premise.

He’s getting rid of a lot of federal employees.

Well, no. I think what he’s doing just to set the table is Elon Musk is saying, number one, you need to come back to work. And if you don’t want to come back to work, perhaps you should take a buyout. So I think that’s different. They have an option to come back to work, but they don’t want to come back to work. That’s okay.

That’s a portion, though.

That is a portion.

To answer your second question, are we concerned that if it flips and the White House, that’s what they’ve done for the past four years.

The Democratic White House?

The Democratic White House. Right. They just added a bunch of stuff without going through Congress.

So which programs do you mean by that?

The White House hired and employed a bunch of Green New Deal people. They just did the opposite: where we’re trying to slash and reduce the size and scope of government, the Democrats want to increase the size and scope of government.

But no matter what side you’re on, you’re right. Here’s how I look at it. Executive orders are short-term, immediate fixes, right? And the reason why I also say it’s short-term, because it can get reversed when the next president comes in, if the party switches. That’s whether we like it or not. That’s the rules of the game. And both parties play by it.

What we have to make sure that we do is make sure that a lot of these executive orders are codified into law. And that’s where the legislation in our branch of government comes in. That is so important.

Democrats have suggested, because of all the changes happening in the executive branch right now, that their price for keeping the government open is going up. Does this concern you? Or do you think Republicans should basically call their bluff and that they’ll keep the government open?

Call their bluff. If the Democrats want a government shutdown, that’s on them. They have been the one for decades saying, “Oh, We don’t want a government shutdown.” Okay. Now, all of a sudden, they want a government shutdown? That’s their call. That’s their prerogative. If they want to own the government shutdown, they can own the government shutdown.