Trump to meet with GOP senators to get ‘on the same page’ to advance his agenda

(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump will meet with Senate Republicans Wednesday to try to get lawmakers “on the same page” on how to advance some of his major policy initiatives after he takes office on Jan. 20.

Trump will meet with Senate leadership and the rank and file after paying his respects to former President Jimmy Carter, who lies in state in the Capitol before his funeral on Thursday.

The president-elect wants to deliver on campaign promises, but how to move them forward has divided congressional Republicans.

Trump has pitched one massive bill that would include several of Trump’s top priorities: Immigration reform and energy production, and extending the tax cuts passed during his first term and other spending cuts. He’s also suggested that the bill should raise the debt ceiling or eliminate it altogether.

With small majorities in each chamber and little to no support expected from Democrats, Republicans plan to push “reconciliation” — a fast-track process limited to spending and revenue legislation that needs only a majority rather than the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to pass legislation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson faces resistance to the one-bill approach from fiscal conservatives in his conference. And some Senate Republicans are advocating for two bills — one on border issues and a second to deal with fiscal policy.

One of the key objectives in Wednesday’s meeting will be “how we get on the same page with the House,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Tuesday.

Barrasso said the “goal is the same,” whether it’s done with one or two bills, but he said a two-part plan would allow Trump to deliver on some of his promises and allow more time to address tax policy that doesn’t expire until the end of the year.

“It was a suggestion by [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune — this was before Christmas — he said, ‘Let’s get an early win on the border,'” Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. “It was an issue in the election and it is a big issue for the American people and it is a big issue for national security, and we just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with a focus on that, on taking the handcuffs off of American energy as well as military strength, and then have the longer time to work on the financial component of this.

“These issues and the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until the end of the year to the level that these other issues have the higher urgency right now,” he said.

Trump reiterated his preference for one bill when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, but said he could live with two.

“Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, he said. But if two is more certain [to pass], it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” he said.

In the House, Johnson said he remains convinced that the one-bill strategy is the “best way to go,” but conversations with Thune are continuing.

“Yes, Leader Thune and I are on exactly the same page with regard to the objectives, and we’re determining right now the final sequence of the play call, so to speak,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “This is not some sort of, I feel like sometimes the media tries to make this an existential threat to the objectives or to what we’re doing with the legislation. It’s not that, this is two chambers deciding the best sequence of events, and we’ll get to a perfect alignment here in the next I think a couple of days.”

Johnson said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week in April, but it remains to be seen if he can get fiscal conservatives in his conference, who have long opposed all-in-one bills like the one Johnson is proposing, on board.

The speaker pushed back on Tuesday about the one-bill approach being a kitchen sink approach.

“This is not an omnibus spending bill, but appropriation,” Johnson said. “This is reducing spending, which is an objective we talked about. I’ll keep reiterating this: that just because the debt limit is raised, to give stability the bond markets and to send a message around the world that we will pay the nation’s debt. We are doggedly determined to decrease the size of scope of government and to limit spending, cut spending so you can you’ll see both of those things happen simultaneously.”

Johnson also intends to handle the debt limit in the reconciliation bill — without Democratic support.

“That way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we again get to determine the details of that. If it runs through the regular order, regular process… then you have to have both parties negotiating. And we feel like we are in better stead to do it ourselves,” he said Tuesday.

But it remains to be seen whether Johnson can sell the fiscal conservatives in his conference on that idea. They nearly derailed the short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown last month after Trump demanded that it dealt with the debt ceiling.

After his meeting with senators, Trump will meet with groups of House Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida this weekend.

“He’s bringing in big groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend three days in a row to meet with and talk with all of our team members about what’s ahead of us and the challenges and how we can accomplish all this together,” Johnson said, though the speaker is not expected to attend.

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