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In an exclusive interview with NBC News, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) gave insight into how he has worked with President Trump and House Republican leadership to repeatedly overcome the odds and deliver on Republicans’ America First agenda.

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How Whip Tom Emmer helped Trump flip the Republican script on spending bills

NBC News

Sahil Kapur

January 21, 2026

Facing the first big legislative test of Republican control in 2025, Majority Whip Tom Emmer took it personally when Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democrats built a strategy that hinged on the House GOP’s failing to pass a government funding bill on its own.

“Bulls---,” Emmer, R-Minn., told his chief of staff, Robert Boland, according to two sources with knowledge of the remark. “We’re going to prove him wrong.”

For years, House Republicans had been notoriously divided over bills to keep the government open, with a rebel band of conservatives routinely splitting off and forcing leaders to cut deals with Democrats. In the weeks before the deadline, Emmer told members at conference meetings to be prepared to pass a spending bill on their own to keep the government open.

“I don’t count Democrat votes,” Emmer recalled telling Republicans. “You’re the only ones that I count, and you’re the only ones that matter to me.”

It was a tall order. The arch-conservatives routinely blasted those bills as betrayals of their promise to shrink the government and pay down the debt. Many had never voted for a short-term bill to fund the government.

This time, all but one of them caved after Republican leaders enlisted President Donald Trump to help twist arms. House Republicans passed their bill to keep the government open, even picking up a lone Democratic vote.

Democrats were surprised. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saw no choice but to back off his filibuster threat and let the bill pass, causing rare friction with Jeffries. Months later, the House GOP’s ability to pass another spending bill without relying on Democrats gave them an upper hand during the 43-day government shutdown that ultimately broke the Democratic resolve on demanding an extension of health care funds.

While 2025 was a year of frequent chaos, ceaseless infighting and internal recriminations for the tiny House majority, Republicans were able to flip the script on one core dynamic on Capitol Hill: finally getting the party to stick together on spending and debt.

Emmer, the gruff Republican vote counter, was key to getting the “hell no” Republicans to wave the white flag after years of refusing to vote with their leadership on funding issues, including during Trump’s first term.

Emmer has leaned on the relationships he built as the former House GOP campaign chair — and, he told NBC News, he has learned when to tap Trump to deal with difficult members. Emmer is the “tougher cop,” a White House official said, in contrast to Speaker Mike Johnson’s more patient style.

“I’ve had the conversation more than once where it’s like, no, you can do whatever you want to do. But now you can tell the president that that’s what you want to do,” Emmer said in an interview in his Capitol leadership office. “And it’s not to intimidate. It’s that it’s very easy to look at me and say, ‘I just can’t do that.’ OK, that’s great, but talk to the president.”

Both Emmer and the White House said Emmer is cautious about when to deploy Trump to twist the arms of specific members. When his office issues whip alerts, it often gets dozens of “no” or “maybe” responses. Some votes are easier to move than others. The difficult ones are sent to Trump.

“Donald Trump is the Republican Party right now. There’s no question he is the leader,” Emmer said, adding that he has told difficult members when he is trying to win their votes: “You are not with Donald Trump necessarily because you’re best friends. You’re with Donald Trump because your constituents support what Donald Trump is trying to do.”

The strategy hasn’t always worked. The tumultuous last year was marked by personality clashes, ideological fights and frequent internal threats to take down bills, sometimes forcing party leaders to abruptly pull them off the floor. More Republicans are teaming up with Democrats to use “discharge petitions” and force votes on their bills, which recently prompted Johnson, R-La., to insist, “I have not lost control” of the floor.

Attendance issues have also plagued the party as Emmer’s declaration that members can miss votes only in “life and death” circumstances hasn’t been heeded by everyone. And this year could be even tougher as the majority faces an existential threat in the midterms.

But the playbook has worked successfully in intraparty skirmishes over Trump’s signature law and spending bills. It faces another test as the GOP-led Congress approaches another Jan. 30 deadline to prevent a shutdown while it confronts Democratic demands to restrain Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In April, when the House was set to vote on the budget for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” one Republican sought to tank it. Emmer found out that the lawmaker, whom he declined to identify, had texted Trump directly: “You do not have the votes to pass this.”

Emmer immediately called Trump.

“That guy doesn’t know s--- from Shinola, and he’s trying to convince you to pull the bill off the floor,” Emmer told Trump, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the remark, who spoke about it on condition that the lawmaker wouldn’t be named. “Do not do it. We’re going to pass this.”

The budget was approved 216-214, with zero margin for defection.

It set the table for a heated debate over the coming months over the underlying “big, beautiful bill,” a multitrillion-dollar spending bill that included the kind of debt ceiling increase many Republicans had never voted for and vowed not to. Once again, they surrendered, and Trump signed it on July 4.

“It’s kind of a revolution,” said a senior White House official who marveled at the tiny House majority’s rallying around such a massive bill, while crediting Emmer in part for the shift.

Like others on the right, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-N.C., had threatened to sink the spending bill and the debt limit hike, but Emmer’s argument that doing so would give Democrats leverage helped persuade him to vote “yes.”

House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., said Emmer is “critical” to wrangling the votes for spending measures he writes. “He’s my cigar-smoking buddy. He comes up and smokes cigars and we strategize.”

As speaker, Johnson is the face of the franchise. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., runs the floor. Emmer counts votes, largely operating behind the scenes.

His take on Johnson? “He’s the nicest guy,” Emmer said. “I think we’re two very different people, but it could not be a better tandem.”

Members say Emmer is blunt and direct, which can be off-putting at times, but at least they never have to guess where he stands.

“Tom, he applies the hockey stick. That’s in his DNA,” Norman, of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, said, chuckling. “He’s straight up. There’s no double talk with him.”

Emmer, a former coach whose office is decked out in hockey memorabilia, said the role of House Republican enforcer comes naturally to him.

“I come from the state of Minnesota. We didn’t invent passive-aggressive behavior; we perfected it,” Emmer said he once told Trump. “And I said I just happen to be more aggressive-aggressive.”

The two haven’t always had a sunny relationship. In October 2023, Emmer sought to run for speaker after Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was overthrown. He won the nomination on a secret ballot, but then conservatives revolted, and Trump, who wasn’t in office at the time, went off on Emmer on social media, declaring that “RINO Tom Emmer” had “never respected the power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA.” The bid was over. Emmer dropped out, and eventually the little-known Rep. Mike Johnson ascended.

Asked why Trump went after him, Emmer replied: “Nothing happened. I think we’ve always had a great relationship. Who knows what happened that specific day? Like I’ve said to people, I can’t control what other people say about me. I can only control what I do, and I think the president appreciates that. I appreciate him.”

A few years earlier, after the rioters were cleared out of the Capitol on the night of Jan. 6, 2021, Emmer had bucked Trump by voting to certify President Joe Biden’s victory, until then a routine practice. He was chair of the GOP campaign arm that year, as the party overperformed and gained 13 House seats. The candidates he celebrated had won on the same ballots that scores of Republicans were seeking to disqualify because Trump had lost.

That tension appears to have fizzled.

“Whip Emmer has been an invaluable partner in helping President Trump and House Republicans deliver the most consequential and effective Republican Congress in living memory, with the narrowest majority since the 1930s,” Trump’s legislative affairs director, James Braid, told NBC News, citing Emmer’s “knowledge of the conference, his deep relationships with the membership, his tactical acumen and his expert staff.”

When Trump was wrangling the votes to pass his signature bill, he called Emmer to ask for “a couple of names” he needed to persuade.

“I gave him one in particular that I don’t think he’d ever really talked to. And he was so funny — he gets back to me at, I want to say, 1:30 in the morning. I was not awake,” Emmer said. Trump left him a voicemail. “Great talk. Talk for almost an hour. We talked about this, we talked about that. Great guy. Tell him I thought he was a great guy,” Trump said in the voicemail, recalled Emmer. “Oh, and I think we got that one.”

Emmer, again, declined to name the lawmaker. He said he wants to operate as a “small town law office” — if you “share your clients’ business outside of the office, you will not have any business.”

When they crossed paths on the floor, the lawmaker told Emmer he was leaning against the bill: “I’m thinking about it. I don’t think so.”

“Well, the president really enjoyed the conversation,” Emmer replied. “We could really use your vote today.”

He voted for the bill.

In the interview just ahead of the first anniversary of the Trump-GOP trifecta in Washington, Emmer didn’t deny that he may still want to be speaker of the House someday in the future.

“I’m going to do what’s in front of me. I never came here to be somebody. I came here to do something. And I think we’re finally doing it,” he said. “And we’ll see how that turns out. We’ll see what the future holds.”