CNN — 

Donald Trump just convinced dozens of Republican hardliners to do what House speakers from John Boehner to Kevin McCarthy could not: Walk the plank on one of Washington’s dreaded short-term spending bills.

Even with the House GOP’s own whip operation in overdrive, it was Trump who landed the final votes for a funding measure that many conservatives publicly admitted they loathed.

“He’s like, one of the only people up here I trust,” Rep. Eli Crane, who voted to oust McCarthy for pushing a similar spending patch two years ago, said in a brief interview describing his Tuesday night vote.

“I don’t want to see the president have to go make a deal with Democrats,” Crane told CNN.

Related article How each House member voted on government funding

The week-long pressure campaign from Trump and his inner circle played out both privately and in public, and ultimately proved critical to his party’s floor victory on Tuesday night.

It also showcased the president’s new strategy to try and win over skeptical members not with his bluster, but with a more personal touch — the same approach that those close to him credited with strong-arming his Cabinet nominees through the Senate earlier this year.

During the talks, several members expressed their own specific needs and requirements in order to support the bill, sources familiar with the conversations told CNN. Some of them included reassuring members, particularly ones worried about their reelection chances in competitive primaries, that Trump will support them moving forward, one of the sources said.

However, Trump’s sale pitch to skeptical Republicans could also put the White House in a bind down the line as the president and his top aides appeared to have made conflicting promises.

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, for instance, said the president assured him that DOGE will more closely scrutinize defense spending moving forward. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed to increase spending for the Pentagon in a separate conversation with Republican senators.

But for now, Republicans are relishing in Senate Democrats’ political quandary over the funding bill, and celebrating their win despite the paper-thin margins — marking the House GOP’s second major lift in a month, after advancing the party’s budget blueprint.

And they say it’s a preview of the political muscle that Trump will need to deploy for the much tougher pieces of his agenda — including trillions in tax cuts, money for mass deportations and steep government-wide cuts.

Trump himself personally spoke with at least a dozen members, as well as some senators, in the week or so leading up to the vote. He also invited Freedom Caucus members to a private meeting at the White House last week, days before the spending bill was even released, after House Majority Whip Tom Emmer personally encouraged Trump’s legislative affairs team to use the meeting to head off potential concerns with the bill, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“This is a very difficult vote for them. They’ve never voted for one of these,” Emmer told CNN of the ultraconservatives’ decision to back the spending bill. “The president’s been extremely gracious with his time in terms of talking to some of our members.”

It was a full-court press from the White House: Vice President JD Vance came to the Capitol the morning of the vote, where he warned House Republicans that the GOP would be blamed if the government shuts down, a person in the room told CNN. Vance told members that the party will “lose momentum” on Trump’s agenda if the stopgap spending bill fails, specifically pointing to border security and political momentum, the source said. He also vowed that the White House would claw back spending in other forms, including through a wonky process known as “rescissions” — a move that conservatives cheered, another person said.

That in-person directive from the vice president came as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Trump’s budget chief Russell Vought – in addition to the president himself – worked the phones and met in person with GOP members to line them up behind the bill, two White House officials familiar with the talks said. Vought also huddled with members of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this month, where he made the case that members should support the stopgap so that “DOGE can keep DOGE-ing,” according to a person in the room.

“It’s a similar approach to how we got wary members to back the president’s nominees. Trump is adding a personal touch, while also reminding them this is the best way to secure the party’s priorities,” one of the White House officials said.

Related article What we know about the House GOP government funding bill

House GOP leaders had already spent weeks preparing their members behind the scenes to back this kind of stopgap bill. Then they narrowed it down to their most “stubborn” GOP holdouts, according to two House GOP leadership sources, and enlisted Trump’s help for the final mile. This time, it was Reps. Beth Van Duyne of Texas and Rich McCormick of Georgia — who leadership always believed would support the bill but needed the president to make sure.

“He closes the deal,” one of the GOP sources said.

Trump’s message, according to one GOP member who received a call, was: “Put your faith and trust within me, and I won’t burn you.”

The White House’s attitude toward one particular member, however, was less cordial. Trump himself declared that he will “lead the charge” to oust Rep. Thomas Massie from Congress after he refused to vote for the spending plan.

“HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump did not speak with Massie or attempt to change his mind before lambasting the Kentucky Republican on social media, according to a White House official.

The overarching message from Trump, though, is that he views the bill as crucial to carrying out his sweeping agenda — a point that he continues to argue in private conversations that he has a mandate to carry out.

Many House conservatives said the decision was also about empowering Trump to carry out not just his policy agenda, but also his control over a federal government of which they’ve long been skeptical.

“It’s about giving the president the keys to the car,” said Texas Rep. Michael Cloud, who joined Trump at that White House meeting last week, in addition to a personal call this week to “firm up” some more details.

“If you saw a vehicle going down the road that didn’t have a driver in it, you don’t step out in front of it. You try to get in it, get control of it, and turn it around. That’s kind of what’s happening here,” Cloud said.

CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed to this report.