House Dems and GOP meet to hash out Trump tax relief

• House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is trying to pass the bill along party lines, but his path for doing so is tenuous due to his razor-thin majority.

Driving the news: The bipartisan SALT Caucus huddled in the Rayburn House Office Building on Tuesday afternoon for the first time since last year.

• Among those present were Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), George Latimer (D-N.Y.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Laura Gillen (D-N.Y.), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.)
• The meeting comes after Trump told a group of Republicans pushing for a SALT deduction cap increase to come back with a "fair number" during a meeting over the weekend.

What they're saying: Gottheimer, a co-chair of the SALT Caucus, called it a "very constructive conversation ... and you're seeing the kind of bipartisan cooperation we need to get to a way forward."

• Gottheimer said that "everybody believes the cap should be lifted" but acknowledged "this is going to be a process."
• Lawler said that "everybody ideally would like unlimited, but there's ideal and there's reality," adding that Democrats "certainly understand that — they've been through negotiations on their own."

Zoom in: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) fired a shot at Republicans last week for seeking to raise the cap after lowering it in their 2017 tax bill.

• "Republicans burned the house down, and now they're going to pretend that they're firefighters. Are you kidding me?" he said.

The bottom line: "Look, we'll work through the process and keep [Democrats] up to speed on what's happening, but at the end of the day if it's through reconciliation it's going to be a Republican bill," Lawler said.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional repotting.