‘A Lot of Ball Game to Play’: Republicans Have a Plan to Pass Trump’s Agenda. It’s No Sure Thing.

Republicans have a two-pronged reconciliation plan. But if the GOP has learned anything from the past, it’s that these types of legislative gambits are easier said than done.

John Thune

Newly elected Senate Republican Leader John Thune gives remarks during a press conference at the Capitol. Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP

With narrow majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans have a plan to convert their legislative dreams into MAGA realities next year: budget reconciliation.

Specifically, Republicans are lining up not one, but two reconciliation bills to subvert the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and get their legislative agenda to the Resolute desk in Donald Trump’s reclaimed Oval Office.

But as Sen. Susan Collins suggested, Republicans would be wise not to get ahead of themselves.

“Reconciliation is extremely complex,” Collins said on Tuesday. “As those of us who have been through it before know.”

Trump called into the Senate GOP’s policy retreat on Tuesday, when incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune laid out his reconciliation intentions. And according to more than a dozen GOP senators who spoke with NOTUS after their meeting with Trump, the rough sketch of the two-pronged plan goes something like this:

First, pass a grab-bag of Trump-approved “wins” in the first 30 to 100 days of his administration — mostly focusing on border security, energy policies and defense. Then, after securing those early legislative victories, pass another bill for tax cuts and maybe some other legislative items that didn’t make it into the first measure.

The immediate reaction from Republican senators was positive but reserved. In theory, two bills gives the GOP an opportunity to put points on the board early next year without getting bogged down in complicated and politically fraught discussions on tax policies.

“The first one, we can get done fairly quickly,” Sen. Mike Rounds told reporters Tuesday. “And the second one, which will take a little bit more time.”

“I fully support the idea of those two reconciliations in the first year,” he added.

But as Sen. Thom Tillis put it to reporters, “whatever works” is the best strategy.

While the plan may sound ideal in theory, precedent, politics and the president would suggest that Republican leaders have a long road ahead to secure two reconciliation bills that do, in fact, work.

For the time being, Republicans are united on the plan. For months, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has suggested Republicans get everything done in one huge package, with Scalise even telling NOTUS during an interview in late October that the House intended to pass tax cuts in the first 100 days of a Trump administration.

But after Thune laid out the two-pronged plan on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson promptly endorsed the idea. “We’ve always been planning to have two reconciliation packages, determining now the content of both, and we’ll let you know,” Johnson told NOTUS.

Whether it was always the plan or not, Republicans know passing multiple reconciliation bills — particularly when there could only be a one-vote margin in the House — is easier said than done. As Tillis said, “It’s going to require a lot of leadership on Johnson’s part, on Thune’s part.”

“It’s going to take a whole lot of coordination leadership from the White House as well,” he added.

To work out the process, leadership staff has been in talks with Trumpworld about what the reconciliation packages would look like and how it would work — questions that haven’t yet been settled.

My outlook is, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of ball game to play here. Let’s see how it plays out.
Sen. Josh Hawley

In 2017, during Trump’s first year in office, Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act through reconciliation, but only after the GOP had tortured itself over coming up with an Obamacare replacement through reconciliation. In many ways, it took that bill failing for Republicans to feel the urgency to unite on a tax bill.

Democrats also took advantage of budget reconciliation to pass the American Rescue Plan in Joe Biden’s early days. But that second reconciliation bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, ended up taking more than a year and a half to complete.

Now, once again armed with a GOP trifecta, Republicans think they can pass another sweeping reconciliation bill, and then pass another.

There might be some wisdom to the plan, as having another bill on deck allows GOP leaders to promise that certain priorities make it into the next reconciliation package. But haggling over what goes into that first package — and what’s left out — could be a sticking point for many Republicans.

There’s also the question of whether it’s wiser to do the more sweeping package before a tax bill. Republicans learned in 2017 that it’s much easier to agree on simply cutting taxes than most other policies. Leaving the tax cuts as the second piece might ensure Republicans ultimately get something done, but the whole gambit could complicate each step of the process.

Sen. Josh Hawley summed up the questions and fluid nature of the plan succinctly: “My outlook is, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of ball game to play here. Let’s see how it plays out.”

Several senators cautioned NOTUS that discussions of what policies, precisely, would make it into the reconciliation bills were still in early stages. Sen. John Cornyn called the conversation “preliminary” and “educational.” Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS he didn’t think there was “enough consensus yet.”

With 53 Republican senators, the upper chamber is well-positioned to meet the vote threshold to pass reconciliation. Even if moderate senators like Collins and Lisa Murkowski buck their party, the GOP has some wiggle room. Despite his support for the two-fold plan, the challenge, senators told NOTUS, will actually lie with Johnson in the House.

“Generally speaking here, we could get to consensus,” Tillis said of the Senate. “But if you look at the priorities at one end of the spectrum for the House caucus and the other end on the border, there is some reconciliation — pun intended — that needs to be done before reconciliation.”

Johnson will have virtually no cushion to pass the reconciliation bills in his own chamber next term, as he manages what could be a one- or two-vote margin. That gives every House Republican de facto veto power over the legislation. And if history is any indication, that’s been a legislative recipe for disaster.

“We’re getting an early taste,” Rep. Mark Amodei — a senior appropriator — told NOTUS of reconciliation negotiations. “We’ll see first of all how the CR goes, because that’s not apparently going real smooth.”

But stopgap spending negotiations aside, there’s big upside in an early reconciliation bill for Johnson, who would surely get a big boost — both from Trump and many of his GOP detractors — for shepherding a red-meat bill through the House.

The reason? He would deserve it. Passing the sort of bill Republicans are discussing, with the sort of expansive policies they want, would be incredibly difficult.

“You’ve got to get agreement between the House and Senate, and obviously the speaker, who was there this morning,” Cornyn said. “We’re gonna have a very thin margin. Going to be tough.”


Riley Rogerson and Reese Gorman are reporters at NOTUS. Samuel Larreal, who is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed to this report.