Senate Republicans have plenty of controversial questions to answer in their reconciliation bill. How much will they cut Medicaid? Will the poorest Americans effectively see their taxes go up from the legislation? Will the bill cut food benefits?
But on Thursday, it wasn’t the most contentious elements of the legislation that were causing Republicans headaches; it was a part of the bill that, up until this point, Republicans have been unified on: border security.
The budget resolution that Republicans adopted to set up reconciliation directs the Homeland Security Committee to include $175 billion in funding for border control and President Donald Trump’s signature border wall. The committee’s chair, Sen. Rand Paul, said he plans to introduce his own version of the bill with far less funding, telling reporters this week his legislation would “actually be a conservative version” with about “half as much money.”
The whole ordeal is calling into question one of the most automatic-seeming components of the reconciliation bill, with Paul undermining a key talking point of the legislation — that it’s necessary to secure the border — and redefining the measure as more bloated government spending.
At the moment, Senate Republicans aren’t sure how to react to Paul and his call for scaled-back border spending.
“We would be insane not to fully fund border security,” Sen. Josh Hawley said. “I can’t believe we’re even considering not doing it.”
But other senators also have questions about the border security provisions, and they also have concerns about the overall price tag of the reconciliation bill.
Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the Republicans who’s currently opposed to the bill over its spending levels, said there have been “frustration” over the border security issue.
“I don’t think we’re going to move the number up, but we’re not going to shortchange it,” Johnson said. “This is a mess we have to clean up, and it’s going to cost a lot of money.”
The conflict over border spending came to a head Thursday when Senate Republicans met with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. Miller lobbied Senate Republicans to meet the White House’s desired border-funding numbers.
But at the moment, there are at least four conservative senators who are opposed to the House-passed bill over spending levels, and there are conversations about reducing some of the line items as a way to rein in the overall price tag.
Johnson gave Miller credit on Thursday for doing a “really good job laying out just the complexity of what they’re having to deal with,” noting that senators “were just looking for some basic numbers because they weren’t quite adding up.”
Paul himself didn’t attend the meeting with Miller, telling reporters he had an ambassador to introduce. But it’s hard to ignore that Paul and the White House haven’t necessarily been on great terms recently.
For weeks, Trump has bashed Paul. The Kentucky senator has publicly said he opposes the reconciliation bill over the inclusion of a $4 trillion debt-limit increase. And Paul now plans to offer his own legislation, casting his bill as a conservative alternative.
Earlier this month, Trump posted on Truth Social that “Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas.”
“His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him,” Trump said.
Escalating the feud, Paul also said he and his family were disinvited to the White House picnic over the reconciliation squabble, which the senator said was “incredibly petty.” Trump later extended a public invite to the senator — “it gives me more time to get his vote on the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill,” Trump said — and the senator also said he got a call from the president on Thursday.
“We had a long conversation last week,” Paul said. “I think we were both worn out from last week, so we didn’t go into a lot of details this morning. We were just trying to get sort of the idea of whether my grandson could go to the picnic out of the way.”
(Notably, Paul’s fellow Kentucky Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted against the reconciliation bill in the House, also said his White House picnic tickets were withheld. “Low class,” Massie said.)
Senate GOP leaders are under no obligation to give Paul’s border proposal a vote, though Paul does chair the relevant committee. From the sound of it, leaders plan to ignore Paul’s legislation. When asked if the border portion of the bill might change, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said “not a lot.”
But any changes to the border portion of the bill would be complicated. The House’s version of the legislation was carefully negotiated and hard won. It took weeks of Speaker Mike Johnson haggling between conservatives and moderates to strike a balance. By tweaking the bill — which the Senate is already doing — the chamber ensures that the House will need to pass the reconciliation bill again before sending it to the president’s desk.
Congressional Republican leadership’s goal is to have the bill to Trump by July 4. That timeline is looking more unlikely by the day, however.
Thune warned this week that he will keep members in through the July 4 recess if reconciliation is not yet passed, though those sorts of threats can only work if Republicans are actually close to producing a final bill.
Senate Republicans still haven’t released text of their bill, and they seem to be fighting over elements that were generally considered settled. They haven’t even gotten to the fights over the tough stuff, like Medicaid, the state and local tax deduction and food benefits.
Still, senators are aiming to get their work done fast.
“We would like to have the bill ready the week of the 23rd,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin said.
The Senate’s last day of scheduled session is June 27. That gives senators just five days to get the bill through debate, through an almost certain all-night vote-a-rama for amendments, passed, and then sent back to the House for approval in order to meet their scheduled deadline.
It’s an ambitious timeline, to say the least.
“Leader Thune is working to make sure we’re done,” Sen. Rick Scott said.
But after that?
“I don’t know what the House will do,” Scott said.
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS. Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. John T. Seward, a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow, contributed to this report.