It’s a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners — and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all.
The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he’s re-emerged as a behind-the-scenes sounding board for Republican hard-liners, who view him as an informal conduit with the White House as they try to shape the president’s “big, beautiful bill.”
It’s just the latest turn for Meadows, who played a central role in ousting John Boehner as speaker, then served as conservative gadfly in Paul Ryan’s House GOP before leaving for the White House. He was at Trump’s side through 2020 until the ignominious end of his first term.
His most recent headlines have concerned his role in the “stop the steal” efforts that followed the 2020 election and his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Reports of an immunity deal and his testimony to a federal grand jury made him persona non grata in some MAGA circles.
But Meadows, who declined to comment for this story, has maintained a foothold on the hard right as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute — a conservative think tank in Washington headed by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It’s where the current iteration of the House Freedom Caucus, which Meadows once led, huddles for its weekly meetings, and he keeps in frequent touch with the group’s members.
Those conversations have heated up in recent weeks as the GOP megabill has moved to the top of the Capitol Hill agenda.
This past Tuesday evening, for instance, Meadows ventured into the Capitol complex to meet with a small cadre of hard-liners from both chambers: GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
The meeting in Lee’s office, which was first reported by POLITICO, focused on how the right flank could hang onto some of its biggest priorities in the House version of the megabill, while trying to eke out some new wins in the Senate.
“He’s just trying to figure out how to thread the needle here,” Johnson said in an interview.
Added Scott, “Mark is trying to help get a deal done.”
All five sitting lawmakers who attended the Tuesday evening meeting have threatened to oppose Trump’s domestic-policy package if it doesn’t meet their demands, a strategy Meadows is no stranger to.
He played a key role, for instance, in shaping the first attempt at major party-line legislation in Trump’s first term — a 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He pushed as Freedom Caucus chair to make the bill much more aggressive in undoing the 2010 law’s mandates.
Meadows helped broker deals that ultimately got a bill through the House, but it went too far for key senators, and the effort fizzled.
Now, according to Republicans who have spoken with him, Meadows has been helpful in brainstorming ideas for hard-liners as they seek to force as many of their demands into the bill as possible. He’s also viewed by others as eager to stay in the mix on Capitol Hill — akin to a sort of MAGA Zelig who likes to be where the action is.
“He wants to be involved,” said one House Republican, who was skeptical that Meadows is serving a GOP interest larger than himself.
It’s unclear whether Meadows’ role has been blessed by the White House, where opinions about “The Chief’s Chief” — as Meadows titled his memoir — vary widely. Administration officials are aware of Meadows’ quiet shuttle diplomacy in the name of the president’s signature policy item. Even if the Trump administration hasn’t formally sanctioned his role, GOP lawmakers see him as someone who still has the ear of the president and his advisors.
Scott noted that Meadows has “a good working relationship with the White House.” Johnson said it was his impression that Meadows is still actively engaged with the administration, even though he’s technically out of government.
“It’s my understanding that President Trump’s former chiefs stay in touch with him,” Johnson said, adding that Meadows is trying to play a “helpful role.”
Meadows grew so loyal at one point that Trump publicly lauded Meadows during a 2020 rally for physically staying by his side when he contracted Covid. But after Trump lost the election and amid the post-Jan. 6 flurry of congressional and federal investigations, the president and some top MAGA figures increasingly saw Meadows as an unreliable ally given reports about a possible federal immunity deal.
“Some people would make [an immunity] deal, but they are weaklings and cowards,” Trump wrote in 2023. “I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?”
In the end, Meadows was never charged federally and Trump’s indictment on conspiracy changes related to the 2020 election never went to trial. Then, after Trump’s re-election, Meadows assumed his quiet role as power broker.
Meadows has popped up in the House at several big moments in recent months. He huddled with hard-liners and House GOP leaders separately during speaker election fights, including when a small group of conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy in October 2023.
He emerged from Speaker Mike Johnson’s office just a few days before Trump’s inauguration before being spotted on the House side of the Capitol multiple times later in the spring. Asked if he was working on Trump’s behalf, Meadows replied: “Oh no, I’m just here for a brief meeting.”
He headed into the speaker’s office late last month hours before the Louisiana Republican pulled off what many believed to be impossible — passing the House version of the megabill with the support of every Freedom Caucus member, save Chair Andy Harris of Maryland, who voted present.
Unlike with Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy, Meadows is more ideologically aligned with Mike Johnson. The two men were both part of a group of House Republicans who took on the role of Trump’s unofficial defenders during his first Senate impeachment trial, and Johnson — while never a member — has long had close ties to the Freedom Caucus, including when Meadows chaired the group.
Now members of the Freedom Caucus are still in regular contact with Meadows, and the House GOP is studded with old Meadows allies, such as fellow HFC co-founder and current Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who estimated he still talks to Meadows once a week. Many of them see his low-key involvement in megabill talks as being in line with his general approach.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who said he sees Meadows regularly, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Meadows was “facilitating” conversations, summing up his general approach as “like, how do you get this done?”
Rachael Bade contributed to this report.