‘The president prefers one big, beautiful bill — so do I — but you always need a Plan B around here,’ Senator Lindsey Graham said.
President Donald Trump issued a fresh endorsement on Wednesday of House Republicans’ budget framework and “one big beautiful bill” on defense, energy, tax, and border security, giving a boost to Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) while throwing a wrench into the Senate GOP’s separate two-bill strategy.
“Did not see that one coming,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told reporters on Wednesday in reaction to the news, while confirming that the president did not privately communicate his plans before throwing his weight behind the House GOP budget strategy in a Wednesday social media post.
For weeks now, congressional leaders in both chambers have been stuck in a standoff over how to prioritize and pass Trump’s legislative priorities through reconciliation, a budget process that allows lawmakers to circumvent the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold for passing legislation. House Republicans believe the best way to whip their fractious and slim majority in line on the president’s agenda is to lump legislative priorities on immigration, energy, defense, and taxes into a one giant bill, so that fiscal hawks don’t get in the way of renewing many of the provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire at the end of 2025.
Senate Republican leaders are wary of this strategy. Doubtful that Johnson can corral his narrow majority into submission on one mammoth reconciliation bill, they prefer a two-track approach: first by voting on a package that gives Trump an early victory on his border security, energy, and defense-related priorities (while giving the president much-needed congressional funding on immigration enforcement and deportation efforts), and punting a complicated tax fight until later in the year.
In his Wednesday Truth Social post, Trump praised House and Senate GOP leaders for working together but reinstated his preference for Johnson’s approach: “The House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!”
While House Republicans were thrilled by the news, they are no doubt privately scrambling to address Trump’s assurances to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening that “Medicare, Medicaid — none of that stuff is going to be touched” in spending cuts. House Republicans’ budget plan already includes massive cuts to Medicaid to pay for a renewal to the 2017 tax cuts.
What’s more, Trump’s Wednesday endorsement of House GOP leaders’ approach isn’t stopping Senate Republicans from moving ahead with their own budget framework and two-bill strategy as a fallback option in case the House Republicans’ strategy falls through.
The House is out of session for a Presidents’ Day recess this week; meanwhile the Senate is still in town with plans to continue confirming the president’s cabinet nominees and push forward with Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.)’s budget plan later this week.
“We’re moving forward tomorrow,” Graham told reporters on Wednesday. “The president prefers one big, beautiful bill — so do I — but you always need a Plan B around here.”
Plans to press ahead with Graham’s budget blueprint followed a closed-door Senate GOP meeting Wednesday afternoon with Vice President JD Vance, who has served in recent weeks as a liaison between the White House and his former Senate GOP colleagues on legislative and cabinet confirmation matters. According to senators who attended the meeting, Vance echoed the president’s preference for a single bill but notably did not discourage Senate Republicans from trudging ahead with their budget process as a backup option.
“All I can say is: I think our colleagues are on board with the idea of proceeding and moving forward in a way that hopefully gets us an outcome here in the Senate, and then we’ll see what the House is able to achieve next week,” Thune told reporters following the Senate meeting with Vance.
Not every Senate Republican is thrilled with the Senate GOP leadership’s strategy here. “I’m just a little baffled as to what we’re doing, to be honest with you,” Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) told reporters Wednesday, expressing confusion as to why Senate GOP leaders are continuing with their separate track when the president has reiterated his preference for Johnson’s single-bill approach.
“I’m agnostic on the one bill versus two” conversation, Hawley told National Review, while expressing concern that Senate GOP leadership is not in sync with the White House on strategy. “I hope that they’re on the same page as the White House. . . . It doesn’t sound like they are, but I’m not in those discussions.”
(As the clock ticks, recall that congressional leaders are still stuck in tense government funding negotiations to avert a shutdown before funding runs out on March 14.)