President Johnson's effort to enact Trump's agenda in massive bill faces big hurdles

WASHINGTON House Speaker Mike Johnson lays out a very ambitious strategy to answer President-elect Donald Trump's call to enact his agenda in a big, beautiful bill, a plan that will test the limits of his very thin Republican majority.

Johnson, R-La., said Sunday that the party's bill would include provisions on border security, energy, manufacturing and tax policy. He also called for extending the debt ceiling in the same bill and passing it as early as the first week of April.

It's an unusually ambitious challenge for a slim 219-215 majority in the House, which is expected to shrink further in the coming months with two members of the Republican Party resigning to join the Trump administration. When that happens, Johnson won't be able to lose a single vote without needing help from Democrats until the seats are filled.

Republicans plan to use the budget reconciliation process to pass the sweeping Trump agenda. This allows them to bypass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, where Republicans have 53 seats and, after January 20, a tie-breaking vote from new Vice President JD Vance, and can exclude Democrats from the process.

A bill or two?

Key senators, including Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., pushed to split the bill into two bills allowing Republicans to score a quick victory on border funding and take time to develop a second tax bill.

But Johnson and Trump say they prefer a single package. The plan presented to the House consists of a single bill. We met for two days over the weekend, two full days of discussion and strategizing with this in mind. And so that's our assumption at the moment, Johnson told reporters Monday. The Senate has a slightly different opinion and perspective than the House on reconciliation and the wisest strategy. And that's OK; it's part of this process.

We will accomplish this mission, he declared.

Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Los Angeles, told NBC News that renewing the Trump tax cuts, trillions of dollars of which expire at the end of this year, is the toughest ask.

If we wanted to address the tax aspect in the first bill, we really needed to get in the saddle and ride. Because that's obviously going to be the most complicated part, Kennedy said Monday before Congress certified Trump's election victory. Ironically, the immigration part, the border security, will probably be the easiest thing to tackle.

To appease lawmakers and Trump allies who want to take immediate action on the border, House and Senate Republicans will bring a series of immigration and border security bills to a vote in the coming weeks , according to two people familiar with the plans.

We have between six months and a year to demonstrate to the American people that we are going to make changes, Kennedy said. Now, whether you do it in one or two posts, honestly, I can teach this round or this flat. There are pros and cons to both cases.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Budget Committee, which will oversee the Senate process, cautioned against a one-bill strategy.

I'm very worried, he said Sunday on Fox News. If we don't prioritize and get the borders right, it will be a nightmare for our national security. …If you hold border security hostage to get tax cuts, you are playing Russian roulette with our national security.

Thune also spoke Monday, saying Republicans were considering how to proceed when asked about one bill versus two.

The process issues here are far less important than the results, he told reporters.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said Trump's preference for a single bill means the debate is settled.

The House is working on just one bill, he said. It's decided.

Limits on the invoice

The 50-vote reconciliation process means the package must follow strict rules and be limited to issues related to taxes and spending. Under what is known as the Byrd Rule (named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.), senators from either party can challenge portions of a reconciliation bill that do not meet these criteria. The Senate parliamentarian must decide whether or not these provisions actually relate to taxes and spending, and if not, they are removed.

The only way to avoid this is to overturn the parliamentarian's decision, something even some die-hard rank-and-file Republicans are already saying they'd rather not do.

We're pretty committed to preserving the filibuster, and it's kind of like blowing up the filibuster, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a Trump ally, said last month, adding that Republicans do not need to change policies to achieve their policy goals. border.

A serious complication is Johnson's call to use his party's bill to raise the debt ceiling, which Congress will need to do this year to avoid an economically calamitous default on U.S. bonds. It's an issue that many Republicans are loathe to address, usually requiring Democratic votes, and Johnson's majority includes many members who have never voted to increase the nation's borrowing limit.

I don't know what amount he's talking about or what timeline, but if you're going to raise the debt ceiling, you need real cuts. That's it. It's that simple, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in an interview Monday.

We suck at cutting. If we could cut it by 12 cents, I'd have a fucking parade, he said, before clarifying that he was joking about the latter.

Roy declined to identify a dollar amount. We need significant, meaningful reductions. I wouldn't want to pre-negotiate this, he said, making clear that we need to reduce deficits.

The very objective of reconciliation is to achieve deficit neutrality, he added.

That will be very difficult to achieve with a bill that would risk adding trillions of dollars to the long-term debt by extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts before they expire at the end of this year. Trump is also calling on Congress to enclose his proposed no tax on tips, which is expected to increase the cost of the package.

There are other potential nuisances that Republicans could face. A massive package runs counter to the GOP's perpetual demands to legislate smaller, single-subject bills. And a bill of such magnitude would have to be negotiated by party leaders, often raising concerns among conservatives who say legislation should be crafted from the bottom up at the committee level.

In an article published Sunday evening on Truth Social, Trump called on Congress to advance his agenda in a powerful bill. But on the Hugh Hewitt radio show on Monday, he kept the door ajar to the two-bill strategy, saying he saw the benefits.

I am in favor of just one bill. I also want everything to be adopted. And you know, there are people who don't necessarily agree with that. So I'm open to that as well, Trump said. My preference is for a big bill, as I said, a nice big bill. Now it takes longer. You know, actually submitting it takes longer. But so it's a longer process. I would say I would live with that. …For me, it's just a cleanser, it's a cleanser. It's nicer. That being said, we could do some work at the border a little earlier, et cetera, et cetera.

Kennedy said Trump and Republicans need to make this decision quickly and get to work.

I just want to know what the president thinks. I just want to have a deal. Again, I'm not attached to one bill or two bills, he said. I just think we all need to get in the same room and say, OK, here's our game plan. And some will be happy, others will be sad. Because some people in the Senate are convinced that we should divide them. But I also understand the position of the Chamber. We can probably clarify a lot of things with the president over a phone call.

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