Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) pushed back on claims that President Donald Trump yelled at her in a phone conversation to change her vote on a budget resolution, calling the reports “fake news.”
Spartz was among a handful of hard-liner holdouts on the resolution to unlock reconciliation, but a phone call from Trump got the Indiana congresswoman to change her vote. A Puck report detailed that the president was “fuming,” and several members who overheard the conversation told the outlet that Trump screamed at her for being a “fake Republican.”
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“He was the president, he reminded her,” the report detailed — but Spartz said that exchange is not accurate.
“No … categorically not. Complete lie!” Spartz said in a text message to the Washington Examiner.
“I do not disclose private conversations but we had a very good and productive conversation,” the congresswoman added. “President Trump is a smart leader who wants to get things done. And I will help him!”
At the Capitol on Thursday, Spartz reiterated to reporters that the claim Trump yelled at her was “fake news” and blamed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for the way he handled the vote on a budget plan.
“I don’t think he even raised his voice once,” Spartz said of Trump. “I mean, he doesn’t. He never does that.”
The congresswoman posted on X after the vote that Trump committed to “save healthcare” during their conversation.
After her talk with Trump, Spartz was spotted coming out of the cloakroom, where Republicans coalesce to have conversations off the floor and away from the watchful eyes of reporters, looking unhappy. However, she said her displeasure was aimed at Johnson, not Trump.
“I was unhappy with the speaker that we could not — you know, that’s not how you govern,” the congresswoman said. “My previous speaker had problems to do things like that, and I said, ‘Don’t do things on eleventh hour. That’s not productive. We don’t need to have grandstanding on the floor. And you guys write in a lot of BS and stuff.”
“My frustration was with the speaker, and the president agreed with me,” Spartz added, clarifying that Trump was not frustrated with Johnson himself but with the last-minute problems.
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In addition to Spartz, other holdouts included Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Warren Davidson (R-OH), and Thomas Massie (R-KY). With Democrats hauling in all but one of their members to narrow the margin for passage, Republicans briefly pulled the resolution off the floor while leadership and Trump worked on the dissenters to try and change their minds.
Burchett and Davidson eventually voted “yes” on the budget resolution after they were seen on the phone. Burchett said in a video that he had a “great conversation” with Trump and that the president answered all of his questions.