WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump travels to Capitol Hill overdue Wednesday to meet privately with Republican senators as House and Senate Republican leaders scramble to develop a strategy for addressing his legislative priorities, as the party takes power in Washington.
It will be Trump’s first return to the U.S. Capitol since leaving office four years ago, and he is also expected to pay tribute to the overdue President Jimmy Carter, whose remains lie in state in the rotunda ahead of Thursday’s memorial service .
While House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he sees himself as the Republicans’ quarterback with Trump as coach, Republicans are quickly finding themselves in a dilemma: What happens if the coach changes his mind?
Trump has given mixed signals to Republicans on Capitol Hill about the best approach. At stake are tax cuts, border security, money for immigrant deportations and efforts to enhance oil and gas energy production – priorities for Republicans headed to the White House, House and Senate.
One or two bills and there will be little time to achieve Trump’s priorities
The Republicans in the House of Representatives want a unified package. Senate leaders are proposing at least two.
Trump said over the weekend that he wanted “a big, beautiful bill.” On Monday he opened the door again with two people.
“Well, I like a big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will,” Trump said when asked about it at a news conference on Tuesday. “But if two are safer, it goes a little quicker because you can get the immigration stuff done sooner.”
With Trump taking the oath of office on January 20, Republicans have no time to waste. Political capital is almost always at its peak at the start of a modern presidential term, especially since this is Trump’s second term and he is constitutionally barred from serving a third term.
After meeting with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, he is expected to meet with House Republicans this weekend at his private club, Mar-a-Lago.
“You all heard me say last year that, using my football metaphors, we developed a playbook,” said Johnson, R-La. said Tuesday.
“We have very well-designed pieces. Now we are working out the order of these games and working with a new head coach, in this metaphor: President Trump,” he said. “We’re excited to see how this all develops.”
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, to advance Trump’s priorities.
It is a high risk but also potentially high return strategy.
Reconciliation allows Congress to pass bills with a majority vote without the threat of a Senate filibuster that could delay or kill action. But it is also a complex, tough and time-consuming process that can fail at any time.
Democrats used the same tool during the Obama era to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010 without any Republican support. Republicans used it during Trump’s first term to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 without Democrats.
Implementing reconciliation is a herculean task. Doing it twice might prove doubly complex.
The Democrats are trying to assert themselves
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California said it doesn’t matter whether Republicans operate one or two bills to achieve their goals.
What is at stake, Aguilar said, is that Trump and Republicans are proposing a tax break for the prosperous and budget cuts that would lead to cuts in welfare and other programs that Americans rely on.
Republicans are “hustling behind closed doors … trying to negotiate a deal,” Aguilar said, focusing on “how they give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and how they cut programs that hurt people.”
The Republicans want everyone to be on the same wavelength
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican, said Wednesday’s meeting will support figure out “how we all get on the same page with the House.”
Many Republican senators favored the strategy proposed by Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), which would divide Trump’s priorities into two bills.
Thune said one could be approved within the first 30 days of the modern administration. It would include provisions on border security and mass deportations, energy development and military funding. The tax cuts would come later in a second package.
“We just thought we could get this done quicker if we focused on it,” Barrasso said.
Because the GOP tax cuts don’t expire until Dec. 31, he said, “the urgency of the tax issue won’t really come to fruition until the end of the year.”
Given the powerful Democratic opposition to their wish list, the strategy is all the more attractive to Republicans. But it’s particularly complex for Republicans to go it alone because GOP majorities are slim, particularly in the House, where Johnson will need nearly all Republicans on board.
Trump plans to meet with House Republicans at Mar-a-Lago this weekend
Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., one of the House Republicans who traveled to Florida for this weekend’s sessions, said he supports the House’s one-bill approach.
“You’re not going to get everything you want,” he said. “So how do we put something together so everyone can get something?”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of the GOP leadership who invited the president-elect to meet with senators, said she could support one or two bills.
“But I still think the two-bill strategy is better simply because I think we can get an early victory that will show the American people and the president that 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 over the course of his presidency.
Trump ally Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said Trump “just wants everything done.”
“He supports one bill, but he also wants both,” he said. “Either one.” If it takes two, it takes two.”
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
