With Congress moving at a glacial pace on President Donald Trump’s agenda — even for Congress — House Republicans are getting annoyed with their Senate counterparts.
“What are they waiting on? That’s what we’re asking,” Rep. Ralph Norman told NOTUS on Tuesday. “They got to move on it. They got to do something.”
During a meeting at the Treasury Department with top leaders from both chambers, House Republicans took their frustration with the Senate’s lack of hustle on the reconciliation bill directly to the Trump administration.
“We are very optimistic that this is all going to be done, and it sounds like it’s moving a lot quicker now than it has been, so I’m pleased with that,” Speaker Mike Johnson said when he came back from the meeting Tuesday afternoon. “There’s no daylight between the House and Senate. We’re completely united on this mission.”
But if House and Senate Republicans are completely unified, Johnson’s decision on Tuesday to show his House GOP conference text messages from Trump endorsing “one big, beautiful bill” — a continued sticking point between the two chambers — was a curious one.
Trump has, repeatedly, signaled a preference for the House’s single reconciliation bill approach, which lumps all of his legislative priorities together. But Trump has also, repeatedly, suggested that he’s open to the Senate’s idea: two measures — one for the easier priorities, and another for the more contentious tax provisions.
That the House and Senate are still debating the simplest question about reconciliation doesn’t bode well for their timeline. Congressional Republicans have long targeted final passage in both chambers before a two-week recess in April. That deadline increasingly looks like fantasy.
If Republicans have any shot of even remotely sticking to their timeline, they have to get on the same page, which was seemingly the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, who attended the meeting, said Johnson’s message was clear: The Senate has to use the House’s framework for reconciliation.
“We threaded the needle on the one-vote margin,” Arrington said prior to the meeting. “The Senate will take months to do what we’ve been able to do. We should negotiate and conference on policies to achieve those budget targets, but we should leave the fiscal framework as it is and work together to achieve that.”
The Senate adopted its own slimmed-down budget resolution in February, setting up a process for two reconciliation bills, but Johnson has been clear that the House won’t take up that blueprint.
When a NOTUS reporter asked Johnson on Tuesday if he thinks the Senate is dragging its feet on reconciliation, Johnson said that, while the Senate is “behind pace,” he doesn’t blame the chamber; senators have been focused on Trump’s confirmations.
But after the press conference, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise quietly came up to the NOTUS reporter and said it was “a very good question.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune maintains that he still wants to get the Senate GOP’s budget resolution “done” before members leave for the Easter break. But daunting discrepancies between each chamber’s versions of the budget are unresolved.
“It’s kind of the nature of the beast,” Thune said.
“The Senate is going to do what we can get 51 votes for in the Senate, and hopefully what they can get to 218 for in the House,” he said.
“But,” Thune added, “in the end, we have to come together. We obviously have to pass the same budget resolution.”
The House’s budget resolution would cut federal spending by $2 trillion over a decade, raise the debt limit and extend Trump’s first-term tax cuts by eight years. In the Senate, Medicaid cuts are a major hurdle for Republicans from states with high enrollment rates. Including the debt limit in the reconciliation bill is a hefty ask, and Thune is insisting that Trump’s tax cuts be made permanent.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, referring to debate on the debt limit in particular, said “every member will speak for themselves.”
Sen. Josh Hawley told NOTUS he’s received some assurances from leadership that at least some of the House’s most controversial provisions will not make it into the ultimate deal.
“Anything that’s actually a cut to benefits from someone who is otherwise qualified, I’m against,” Hawley said about the proposed Medicaid cuts. “Leadership has assured me our resolution will not authorize such cuts.”
That, of course, will be a major problem for House conservatives, who insisted that sizable entitlement cuts be included to address the ballooning national debt. And whether the cuts are included or not, the debate over the final policy will take time.
Senators contest that the schedule already hasn’t been forgiving to their side of the Capitol. In addition to the government funding negotiations that consumed much of the legislative calendar earlier this month, the Senate has also had to confirm Trump’s cabinet. It’s done so handedly, with all but one cabinet-level position confirmed.
“I know the Senate’s been busy with confirmations,” Rep. Dusty Johnson said. “But it’s really important that we show some momentum on reconciliation. Of course, they’ve got their own cadence and pacing over there, and in the House, we’re used to things moving quickly. I would say there’s a little bit of frustration at the Senate being the Senate.”
House members bashing senators for moving at a slower pace is nothing new. As longtime Rep. Frank Lucas said, “the Senate is a creature that moves at its own speed.”
“No one, short of the Lord, can speed them up or slow them down,” Lucas said. “It is what it is.”
While some Republicans gave the Senate credit for confirming so many Trump nominees, they still emphasized that the chamber needed to get moving.
“We do need to get the budget resolution resolved by time we leave for Easter break,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said. “And I still think that we’re on schedule here. We’re continuing to do what we need to do to make sure we keep this thing on track.”
Sen. Jim Banks, a conservative who served in the House until last term, told NOTUS “there’s no reason why” the Senate shouldn’t be able to finish the latest version of the budget resolution before the Easter break, and that the House and Senate are “really close” to an agreement.
But Banks’ idea of “really close” may not be the same as everyone else’s.
Hawley, for one, said there was a lengthy discussion at a recent closed-door lunch for GOP senators about provisions in the bill.
He noted that it “sounded like there’s a lot of drafting to do.”
And when asked about Thune’s stated goal of getting the resolution done this work period, Hawley was content to leave it at this: “That is leadership’s goal.”
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Daniella Diaz, Ursula Perano and Reese Gorman are reporters at NOTUS.