Republican disagreement: GOP leaders split on how to pursue Trump's agenda
WASHINGTON – Congressional Republicans have been talking for months about how swiftly they'll move to enact President Donald Trump's agenda once he comes into office. That time has finally come.
But it appears there is disagreement about how to get it done after House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune met Tuesday afternoon with Trump at the White House hoping to map out a plan to move a massive package through the GOP-controlled Congress.
Johnson said he emerged from the meeting with "a great spirit of unity."
"We do have a strategy that we're all working on together," he said. "The leaders in both chambers are working in a bicameral fashion and the president is all on board."
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said the plan is to pursue one bill that would encompass the new administration's major priorities – cracking down on people in the U.S. without authorization, boosting domestic energy production and implementing an expansive new tax plan.
But Thune seemed to disagree about what the leaders decided. He told reporters after the meeting, "There are a lot of great theories," and cautioned that plans are "always different when you have to translate it into practice." GOP Senate Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said: "Party unity is the consensus on the reconciliation strategy."
The disagreement leaves the future murky for Trump's campaign promises, even as he moves to reshape the federal government without Congress' help.
At the center of the strategy debate are the incredibly tiny margins in the House. The lower chamber is controlled by Republicans by just three votes, 218-215. If more than one Republican defects and the Democrats remain unified, the GOP won't be able to pass its priorities.
It's a reality Trump acknowledged during his speech at the Capital One Arena on the night of his inauguration.
That's why Senate Republicans have been holding out hope that Trump would side with them and pivot to the two-bill strategy, so they could notch a quick win on border and energy policy while taking the time to deal with the more contentious and complicated tax proposals.
Both chambers "have great leaders," Trump told the crowd. "John Thune is fantastic, and if you look at Mike Johnson, he's got a pretty tight majority, but actually it's very tight, but it's very good because we vote unified. We're really voting unified."
That remains to be seen: House Republicans repeatedly splintered during the last Congress as a small cohort of ultraconservative members derailed votes spearheaded by their leadership. But Republicans are holding out hope that an interest in delivering on Trump's agenda will bring them together.
"We're moving forward with one bill in the House," Scalise said a few hours after the meeting, in response to Thune's comments. "The one area we're not in disagreement on is what will be in an overall package. We're all talking about the same things: Lowering energy costs, securing America's border, preventing tax increases, getting regulatory reform."
More deadlines ahead
There were plenty of other issues for the lawmakers to discuss with Trump at the gathering, including the rapidly approaching March 14 deadline to fund the federal government.
Leaders haven't even decided how much they'd like to spend, let alone begun work on the 12 bills that must pass the House and Senate to avoid a shutdown.
"Before we get to (Trump's agenda), we've got to deal with March 14," said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "We want a top line."
And if that weren't enough pressure, the United States is expected to hit the debt ceiling Tuesday, forcing the Treasury Department to resort to "extraordinary measures" to keep the government solvent.
The debt limit is a cap on how much the U.S. government can borrow. Raising it allows policymakers to pay for what they have already bought. Lawmakers will have to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a default with severe economic consequences, however, it's a politically tricky vote because many conservatives are reluctant to vote for more debt.
Instead, Republicans are mulling raising the debt ceiling in conjunction with disaster aid for Southern California, which has suffered from devastating wildfires for the past two weeks. That way, they argue, Democrats will have an incentive to help, which will make up for the handful of Republican votes that are sure to be lost.
Trump, who plans to visit areas ravaged by California wildfires on Friday, indicated to reporters following the meeting that he supported that plan: "It's in some ways been made simpler by Los Angeles because they're going to need a lot of money and generally speaking, I think you'll find a lot of Democrats are going to be asking for help," he said.
Other Republicans argued it's not only a good idea, it's a necessity.
"There is not money there to put into a (wildfire relief) package unless you borrow the money," said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. Plus, linking the two issues "would probably be more appealing to a broader swath of the Congress in its entirety."
Contributing: Francesca Chambers