Intraparty squabbles over whether to raise the state and local tax cap revealed a harsh truth for Republicans: Just because there is a GOP trifecta does not mean all of its members agree on how to fulfill President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The reconciliation fight over the last few months pitted SALT Republicans from California, New York, and New Jersey against the fiscally conservative Freedom Caucus. Both coalitions say they are Trump’s No. 1 fighters in the quest to slash spending and codify the president’s agenda for the border and the economy.

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“The thing with MAGA is it’s typically not dug in ideological positions,” GOP strategist Jason Roe said. “They are often a whimsical reflection of Trump’s position on that day. I think he probably is amused by seeing these two caucuses arguing over who has more fidelity to his cause.”

The fight over SALT, in particular, exposed the GOP’s Achilles heel: With a small House majority, passing major legislative change is not easy, and the party is not likely to get everything it wants.

“Republicans in Washington are the dog that caught the car: It’s easy to bark at the car and chase it, but once you catch the car, when you do that, is a whole other question,” said Peter Loge, a political scientist and the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.

“And the Republicans are discovering what the Democrats discovered when they controlled all three branches of government: They can get some things done, but they can’t get everything done,” Loge continued.

After more than 24 hours of debate, negotiations, and record-breaking votes and “magic minutes,” the House passed the “big, beautiful bill” with only two Republican dissenters. The road to passage was filled with roadblocks, as fiscal hawks were angered that the Senate deviated from the budget framework. It required extensive deliberations across Wednesday and Thursday, as House leadership and the White House worked to sway holdouts to a “yes” vote.

But one voting bloc emerged victorious: SALT GOP lawmakers received a $40,000 cap that they negotiated in “good faith” with leadership. Though the cap sunsets after five years and snaps back to $10,000, the quadrupled cap was enough to bring blue state Republicans to a “yes” on the “big, beautiful bill.”

Though the last two days were focused on fiscal hawks, it did not discount the hours, weeks, and months SALT Republicans spent putting pressure on congressional leadership to take their demands seriously.

They argued that Republicans would not even have a trifecta if it were not for members such as Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who won a district carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris last cycle, and that the GOP needs their support to keep that majority.

“To me, it’s a binary issue,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) said in an interview. “Either I deliver enough SALT to make my middle-class constituents whole, or I don’t, and the latter simply is not an option.”

SALT became a major component of reconciliation negotiations due to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiring at the end of the year, which would eliminate the $10,000 cap and the tax cuts.

While the right flank of the party was expected to be the House rabblerousers and thorns in Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) side, the more centrist SALT Caucus Republicans emerged as a formidable opponent to leadership with a clear message: We want the SALT cap raised, or we’re out.

“We SALT Republicans have the ultimate walk-away position,” LaLota said.

Ahead of the vote, fiscal hawks had blasted the Senate for trying to jam the reconciliation bill through the lower chamber and accused the SALT Caucus of working against Trump’s agenda.

“At the end of the day, I’m trying to do what’s best and really fighting for his agenda,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), a Freedom Caucus member. “We’re doing everything we can to get the most of what he’s asked for.”

“The people really are fighting Trump are the people that want to raise SALT deductions and are fighting all the cuts in the Green New Deal program,” Burlison added.

Lawler said in an interview that his fellow House colleagues needed to come to terms with a few “political realities.”

“Unlike 2017, where we had a very large majority, and you know, people in districts like mine could be just disregarded,” Lawler said. “That’s not the case this time around.”

One of the SALT Republicans’ swords to wield was that the SALT cap has the blessing of the White House. Many meetings were held over the last few months with officials, and the centrist GOP lawmakers have attributed the bill’s success in passing the House in May to a successful give-and-take from leadership, the administration, and the SALT caucus.

But more simply, SALT is one of the things Trump campaigned on, said Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), the SALT Caucus co-chairman.

Garbarino, along with other centrist colleagues, LaLota, Lawler, and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), had a tough sell to red-state colleagues who did not want to reward New York for high local taxes by giving blue-state residents a federal tax deduction. They pushed back with a double-taxation argument.

“You’re taxing people’s taxes, which I never thought was a Republican belief, but I guess some of my colleagues in the Senate think it is,” Garbarino said.

Malliotakis called the argument that SALT would subsidize New York or California a “fallacy.”

“What we’ve asked for was something that was reasonable and fair, that focused on middle-class families and is supported by the Republican principle of allowing taxpayers to keep more of their hard-earned money,” Malliotakis said.

“The people who are being subsidized are the ones who are receiving refundable tax credits, which are still in this bill,” she added. “So, if we’re going to be doing that, then we should be doing the SALT relief.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) served as a bridge between the blue-state Republicans and the upper chamber. House Republicans expressed appreciation that the Oklahoma senator took the matter seriously and that the Senate adhered to the House’s deal, a blow to the wishes of fiscal hawks.

“We are just as fiscally conservative as anybody is, including the Freedom Caucus members,” Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), the SALT Caucus co-chairwoman, said in an interview. “And I appreciate them. I respect them. However, this is an issue that we ran on, and we got what we needed, and without us, if this SALT is not fixed the way we fixed it and negotiated and debated, we’re not going to have the House majority.”

Roe said the collision of SALT and heavy spending cuts is a “problem of their own creation,” noting that it would not likely have happened if Republicans had instead taken the two-bill approach pitched earlier this year.

“You split these bills up, you could pass the bill that had cuts, and you could keep the conservatives on board, and then you could have a bill that had SALT that you could keep the swing-state or blue-state members on,” Roe said. “Together, that’s an impossibility.”

INDEPENDENCE DAY BLITZ: HOW TRUMP AND THE GOP TRIFECTA SEALED A MAJOR LEGISLATIVE VICTORY

Johnson, despite having many voices in his ear, had taken the SALT issue seriously. Because he could only afford to lose three votes to pass legislation along party lines, the speaker urged the Senate not to modify the SALT cap because of the “delicate balance” in the House.

“It’s a big part of the bill, and it’s what’s necessary to cobble together the 217 votes that I must have to get the final product done into the president’s desk,” Johnson said in a TV appearance. “They’re playing with fire over there. I’ve tried to explain to them, this is not a game.”