WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill late Wednesday to meet privately with Republican senators as House and Senate GOP leaders are straining to come up with a strategy for tackling his legislative priorities as the party takes power in Washington.
The visit is Trump’s first time back inside the U.S. Capitol since he left office four years ago, after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by his supporters. He is also expected to pay tribute to the late President Jimmy Carter, whose remains lie in state in the Rotunda with long lines of visitors ahead of funeral services Thursday.
With Trump taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, Republicans have no time to waste.
While House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he sees himself operating as the GOP quarterback with Trump as their coach calling plays, Republicans are quickly finding themselves in a dilemma: What happens when the coach changes his mind?
Trump has given Republicans on Capitol Hill mixed signals, flip-flopping over what is the best approach. At stake are tax cuts, border security, money to deport immigrants and efforts to boost oil and gas energy production — priorities for Republicans coming to the White House, House and Senate.
One bill or two, with little time to waste on achieving Trump’s priorities
House Republicans want a single package. Senate leaders are proposing at least two.
Trump, over the weekend, said he wanted “one big, beautiful bill.” By Monday, he had reopened the door to two.
“Well, I like one big beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will,” Trump said when asked about it at a news conference Tuesday. “But if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker, because you can do the immigration stuff early.”
Political capital is almost always at its peak at the start of a new presidential term, even more so because this is Trump’s second and he is prevented under the Constitution from a third. Moving swiftly is all the more important because the GOP majorities are slim, particularly in the House, where Johnson can’t afford to lose hardly any votes.
Johnson greeted Trump as he arrived at the Capitol late Wednesday. After meeting with Senate Republicans, Trump is expected to huddle over the weekend with House GOP lawmakers at his private club Mar-a-Lago.
“You all heard me say over the last year we were developing — using my football metaphors — we were developing a playbook,” Johnson, R-La. said Tuesday.
“We have very well-designed plays. Now we are working out the sequence of those plays, working with a new head coach, in that metaphor, President Trump,” he said. “We are excited about how all of that is rolling out.”
Budget reconciliation carries high risk, but potentially high reward
Republicans are relying on perhaps the most complicated legislative tool at their disposal, the budget reconciliation process, as the vehicle to advance Trump’s priorities.
It’s a strategy with high risk, but also potentially high reward.
Reconciliation allows Congress to pass bills on a majority basis, without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate that could delay or kill action. But it is also a difficult, strict and time-consuming process that can fall apart at any moment.
Democrats used the same tool during the Obama era to approve the Affordable Care Act in 2010 without any Republican support. Republicans used it during Trump’s first term to pass the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act without Democrats.
Using reconciliation is a herculean task. Doing it twice could prove doubly difficult.
Democrats are trying to stand their ground
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California said it doesn’t matter whether Republicans use one bill or two to achieve their goals.
What’s at stake, Aguilar said, is that Trump and the Republicans are proposing a tax giveaway to the wealthy and budget cuts that will cut social services and other programs that Americans rely on.
Republicans are “huddling behind closed doors … trying to cut a deal,” Aguilar said, and are focused on “how they provide tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and how they cut programs that hurt people.”
Republicans want to all get on the same page
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican, said Wednesday’s meeting will help determine “how we all get on the same page with the House.”
Many GOP senators preferred the strategy Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., proposed, which would break Trump’s priorities into two bills.
Thune said one could be approved within the first 30 days of the new administration. It would include provisions for border security and mass deportations, energy development and military funds. The tax cuts would come later, in a second package.
“We just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with the focus on that,” Barrasso said.
Because the GOP tax cuts don’t expire until Dec. 31, he said, “the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until the end of the year.”
The strategy is all the more attractive for Republicans in the face of stiff Democratic resistance to their wish list. But it is especially difficult for Republicans to go it alone because Johnson has no votes to spare, and will need almost all House GOP lawmakers on board.
Trump plans meetings this weekend at Mar-a-Lago with House Republicans
Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., among those House Republicans headed to Florida for this weekend’s meetings, said he supports the House’s one-bill approach.
“You’re not going to get everything that you want,” he said. “So how do we put something together that everybody can get something?”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of GOP leadership who invited the president-elect to meet with senators, said she could go with one or two bills.
“But I still think the two-bill strategy is better simply because I think we can get a victory in early, which will show the American people and the president we mean business,” she said.
During his first term, Trump was known for changing his mind, a habit that members of Congress became accustomed to as they navigated his presidency.
Trump ally Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said Trump just “wants all of it done.”
“He supports the one bill, but he also wants both,” he said. “Either one. If it takes two, it takes two.”
___
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
Lisa Mascaro And Kevin Freking, The Associated Press
