By Sarah Ferris and Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — House Republicans kicked off a blockbuster week for President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill,” as Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to stave off a revolt from any one faction of his conference that could tank the sweeping GOP agenda.

As House lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday, key committees launched into debate on the bill that could last 24 hours or longer – marathon sessions that are expected to end in votes to move pieces of the legislation one step closer to full House consideration.

Even with multiple hurdles still to go, House GOP leadership is confident they’ll be on track to take up Trump’s tax and spending cuts package in a floor vote by Memorial Day, a target that even some members of the GOP conference once described as overly ambitious.

But there are warning signs as Johnson and his leadership team are facing friction from both moderates and hardliners and sticking points over policy that have not yet been resolved. With a slim majority, the speaker will need almost complete unity in his conference to advance the bill – and many Republicans expect Trump will need to weigh in to deliver the votes.

One of the biggest sticking points: A tax break that mostly benefits blue states and that conservatives detest but a half-dozen Republicans are demanding. That dispute boiled over in a meeting with Johnson and some of those GOP members on Tuesday night, with one lawmaker asking another to leave out of frustration with the talks, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Separately, debate was contentious at many points during a Medicaid-focused committee hearing. Capitol Police arrested 26 protesters for their interruptions. And at one point, the normally mild-mannered Energy and Commerce panel devolved into infighting over the word “lying” – requiring GOP Chairman Brett Guthrie to repeatedly interject.

Democrats hammered Republicans for their planned tax cuts – which they say mostly help billionaires – and a planned overhaul to Medicaid. They argue that the GOP’s attempt to add work requirements and rein in federal dollars to states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare could cause even children and disabled Americans to lose coverage.

Republicans, however, were adamant that only able-bodied adults would be affected by work requirements and that they would protect access for people with disabilities.

Elsewhere in the Capitol, Johnson and his leadership team have tried to corral the rest of his conference behind the bill. The speaker, for instance, spoke with conservative hardliner Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who has been publicly critical about what he sees as inadequate changes to Medicaid, among other issues.

The speaker also met privately with the so-called SALT Caucus – a loose coalition of roughly a half-dozen Republicans from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California who have sought to repeal the 2017 deduction cap on state and local taxes.

After a meeting with key holdouts on Tuesday night, Johnson said he believed a deal on the issue would come in the next day or so as they awaited key data from Congress’ nonpartisan tax experts to help shape the policy.

“It will probably be tomorrow, only because we need the joint tax people, the number crunchers, to do all of that work tonight, and we’ve asked them to do a lot,” he said. “They’re looking at different facts and figures, so I expect that the final analysis will be tomorrow.”

GOP tax-writers proposed to triple the current cap on state and local taxes, from $10,000 to $30,000 per year, but it is limited to people who are making $400,000 or less. That $30,000 cap, however, has been a nonstarter for those members.

Tensions boiled over in a private meeting with Johnson on Tuesday night about the contentious policy.

Inside the room, the so-called SALT caucus was discussing one possible policy change that would have lifted the state and local tax deduction cap to $40,000 per person and $80,000 per couple.

Frustrations were high among those SALT caucus members, who have sought a much higher limit, to the consternation of many of their fellow Republicans. And GOP Rep. Nick LaLota booted fellow New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a member of the GOP’s tax-writing committee, out of the meeting as they negotiated a deal because she was on board with an earlier, lower number – the $30,000 per person limit that is included in the latest GOP tax proposal, the two people said.

One of the people familiar said that Malliotakis hadn’t been invited to that specific meeting with the speaker. A third person familiar with the matter, however, said the congresswoman had been informed of the meeting by the speaker and committee.

That move left members of the House Ways and Means Committee fuming, the sources said, raising questions about how Johnson can reach a deal before next week when he hopes to bring the whole bill to the floor.

In a post on X on Tuesday night, LaLota called Malliotakis “my friend” and suggested she was “not involved” in the meeting.

“That she wasn’t involved in today’s meeting is a function of her district’s taxpayers requiring something different than mine and the other most SALTY five,” he wrote.

Punchbowl News first reported that Malliotakis was asked to leave the meeting.

Earlier in the week, GOP Rep. Mike Lawler said he cannot back the sweeping bill to implement Trump’s agenda until more favorable terms over the key tax break are negotiated in the proposal.

“As I have said repeatedly, I will not support any bill that does not adequately lift the cap on SALT,” Lawler told CNN on Monday. “This bill as written fails to deliver and will not have my support. I look forward to continuing to negotiate with leadership and the administration to provide real tax relief for my constituents.”

Further complicating matters: One of the GOP lawmakers who has stridently opposed the $30,000 cap is Rep. Elise Stefanik – a member of Johnson’s leadership team.

The GOP’s sweeping legislative plans fulfill many of Trump’s big campaign promises, including scrapping federal taxes on tips, on overtime pay and on car loan interest. It’s a big win for Trump, as is the name of the bill — “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” adopting the president’s moniker for the legislation.

As expected, the GOP plan also includes Trump’s demand for a debt limit hike, which would cost a total of $4 trillion to punt the problem for another few years. Congress needs to raise the debt limit before its August recess to prevent default and Trump hopes to do so using this bill, rather than strike a deal with Democrats.

The bill includes dozens of tax extensions from Trump’s 2017 tax bill. There’s also one relatively new idea – a so-called “MAGA” savings account for kids under 18 years old. It’s short for “money account for growth and advancement,” which would create a new, flexible type of tax-free savings account for kids.

Once key committees take their final votes to advance the bills, the combined package will take another hurdle – the fiscally conservative House Budget Committee. That panel is expected to meet Friday, though nothing has yet been scheduled.

Even after the committees advance their slices of the bill, there’s one big question awaiting the GOP: How much everything will cost.

Guthrie has told members that he believes his plan will reach the target of $880 billion in savings that Republicans called for in their budget resolution, and the congressional budget office confirmed it would in a letter Monday. But he has not yet said exactly how, because the panel is still awaiting key documents from the Congressional Budget Office that will help determine the bill’s overall price tag.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer, Haley Talbot and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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