By Sarah Ferris, Annie Grayer and Alison Main

(CNN) — Dozens of House Republicans are — for now — standing in the way of delivering President Donald Trump the first major legislative victory of his second term.

For weeks, Trump and his team have promised Hill Republican leaders that he would deliver the headstrong GOP hardliners who are still vowing to defy the president on his agenda, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

Now, it’s all coming down to the wire. Trump and his team have spent much of the day in talks with the GOP holdouts on the bill, including summoning groups of Republicans for meetings at the White House to air their grievances with the Senate-passed version of the package. And Trump’s key ally Speaker Mike Johnson is again facing a test of his powers in the narrowly divided House, as he seeks to steer his fractious conference to swallow a vote that many of them dislike.

In a meeting with centrist-leaning Republicans, Trump’s tone was “cordial,” one GOP member in the room said. The White House brought in Dr. Mehmet Oz – who leads the agency in charge of Medicaid – to help educate members on related provisions in the Senate GOP bill, such as provider taxes and a bolstered fund for rural hospitals, and the potential impacts to hospitals in their districts, according to another person familiar with the discussions. Trump and Vice President JD Vance were both in attendance, helping to convince members to back the bill, those two people said.

“Those meetings are having a big impact, members are moving to yes,” Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota told reporters after returning from the White House meeting with Oz, Trump and Vance.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise nodded to the importance of Trump’s involvement in the discussions earlier Wednesday, telling reporters at the US Capitol, “The president from day one has been our best closer, and he’s going to continue to be through today.”

Both Johnson and Trump have been adamant that the bill land on Trump’s desk in time for him to sign it on the Fourth of July, leaving almost no time for more talks. They also have almost no room for error: House Republicans can only afford to lose three votes if they have full attendance. So far, Republicans are still missing multiple members as lawmakers race to Washington after multiple storm-related flight delays.

It all amounts to a pivotal week that could define Trump’ second term: So far, the push to pass his agenda in Congress has been marred by weeks of tense GOP infighting that has even some Republicans worried about how the bill could play in the 2026 midterms.

Yet if it passes next out of the House, Trump and his Hill allies believe it will help cement his legacy on issues like border security and tax policy – including fulfilling his campaign promises of no taxes on tips or overtime pay – while attempting to rein in federal spending by instituting work requirements for able-bodied adults for Medicaid and SNAP.

Meetings were ongoing at the White House as of midday Wednesday, but key conservatives were still insisting they want to change the Senate bill — a promise that Trump and Johnson aren’t willing to make.

“It’s not ‘take it or leave it.’ I don’t need take it or leave it legislating. How about we send it back to him. We say, ‘Take it or leave it,’ all right? So the Senate doesn’t get to be the final say on everything,” Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, one of the most vocal critics of Trump’s bill, said before he left for the White House on Wednesday. “We need more spending restraint.”

Roy is a leading member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, which outlined their opposition to the Senate’s version of Trump’s domestic policy bill in a new memo obtained by CNN.

The right-wing group of Republicans pointed to more than a dozen problems they have with the current bill, including what they described as watered-down energy tax credit measures, an increase to the deficit and various Medicaid provisions that differ from the House-passed version of the bill.

And in another troubling sign for the White House, the Freedom Caucus’ chairman, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, told reporters he declined to attend the meeting with Trump. “I’m still voting no on the rule. We have to get this thing right,” Harris said.

Another possible “no” vote, Rep. Keith Self of Texas, said he was not invited to the White House.

The Senate’s Tuesday passage of the bill had been a hard-fought victory for Trump, who spent days wrangling fellow Republicans behind the multi-trillion-dollar bill, which includes tax cuts and funding boosts for the Pentagon and border security. It also includes more contentious spending cuts to pay for the rest of the bill, including the biggest downsizing of the federal safety net in decades.

Across the Capitol, House GOP leaders are confident the latest version can pass the House, according to multiple sources. But it will likely take significant political muscle, as Johnson grapples with his own high-stakes battle between centrists and right-wing hardliners.

The legislative brawl inside the US Capitol has also included some dramatic moments – including over the weekend when a key Republican, Sen. Thom Tillis, stunned Washington by announcing he would not seek reelection after defying Trump and voting to block his bill on the floor. (Within a day of Trump threatening to primary him, Tillis exited the race altogether.)

Those high-stakes moments will likely continue on Capitol Hill. Before the bill can come to a final passage vote in the House, the chamber must first take a key procedural vote known as a vote on the rule – and some conservative are threatening to rebel against it, creating a new headache for the speaker. (That vote was already delayed by several hours Wednesday.)

The bill did clear one early hurdle in the House: The House Rules Committee voted to advance the rule on Trump’s agenda bill in the early hours of Wednesday morning after the panel met for almost 12 hours. GOP Reps. Ralph Norman and Chip Roy, two conservatives who have harshly criticized the Senate’s version of the package, joined Democrats on the panel to oppose advancing the rule.

Some Republicans, including Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, still insist July 4 was an “arbitrary” deadline.

Massie, who has consistently voted against the bill over his deficit concerns and has faced the ire of Trump, said he intends to stand firm against the bill.

Asked if there was anything at all leadership could do to win his vote, he said, “We could go back to the drawing board.” Asked about the self-imposed deadline, he added: “There’s no reason to bankrupt the country because you want to go shoot off some fireworks.”

This headline and story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Sarah Owermohle, Lauren Fox, Arlette Saenz, David Wright, Aileen Graef, Kevin Liptak and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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