For weeks, the GOP’s marquee piece of legislation has been in limbo, and Republicans are hoping President Donald Trump can offer some guidance.
Thus far, he hasn’t provided any.
Republicans in Congress were eager to deliver on a reconciliation bill early in Trump’s presidency, promising action on the border, energy policy, even potentially taxes.
But GOP lawmakers have been paralyzed over their party’s disagreements on how much a reconciliation measure should save, the scope of the legislation, even how many bills it should be.
Trump has mostly stayed out of the fight, initially telling Republicans he wanted “one big, beautiful bill,” only to backtrack and say he would actually take whatever they can deliver.
That position hasn’t exactly been fruitful, with Republicans wasting weeks squabbling over even the most basic steps. Finally, some Republicans are saying Trump needs to step in.
“It’d be really helpful if the president would be more specific about what he wants in a reconciliation bill,” one senior GOP lawmaker told NOTUS. “Republicans want to enact his agenda, but we’re trying to read tea leaves and guess what he wants.”
A second House GOP member told NOTUS that, while Trump has been clear about what policies he wants, he’s been less clear about spending cuts and budget top lines. Fiscal conservatives are eager to gut government spending. More vulnerable Republicans are not. Trump ruling on a top line could be a pivotal moment in the negotiations.
“He may need to drop the hammer on Freedom Caucus people,” another GOP member said.
And a fourth House Republican emphasized that the White House must “engage in the fray.” If administration officials don’t, this lawmakers said, “it’s to their disadvantage.”
“Just make a play call and stick with it,” a fifth House Republican told NOTUS.
The urgency comes as Republicans are beginning to doubt that they can reach an agreement any time soon, even as Rep. Jodey Arrington, the chair of the House Budget Committee, told colleagues on Tuesday that his panel would mark up a budget later this week — one of the first signs of real legislative movement.
The problem is, Speaker Mike Johnson originally wanted to have a budget resolution by Feb. 7. And even when Johnson gets a budget out of committee and to the floor, his majority is microscopic. He can hardly afford to lose more than one GOP vote.
As the situation grows more dire by the day, there’s some doubt among Republicans in Congress that Trump is getting the full story on the scope of the situation.
“I’m not sure the president’s team is accurately reporting to him how bad the situation will be for his tax cuts agenda if it’s decoupled from border funding and spending cuts,” a senior GOP aide told NOTUS. “The votes simply won’t be there for what needs to get done on tax.”
This senior GOP aide added that some members are choosing “to go directly to the president, cutting out the legislative affairs office altogether.”
That legislative affairs office — more officially known as the Office of Legislative Affairs, or OLA — is quickly becoming a target of frustration as well, three GOP sources told NOTUS. The OLA, which acts as a liaison between Congress and the White House, has also declined to weigh in on internal legislative disagreements, these sources said.
One GOP House leadership aide described OLA as a “clown car,” emphasizing that it doesn’t know what it is doing.
Another source said OLA needs to be on the front lines, pushing for the one-bill strategy. This person suggested that the House simply couldn’t pass a new tax bill without the added sweeteners of border funding and Republican-friendly energy policies.
Trust in Trump’s legislative affairs team was declining even before he took office. According to the three sources with knowledge of the situation, Trump’s incoming legislative affairs team spent much of December telling House GOP leaders that he supported a two-bill reconciliation strategy. Johnson also publicly supported that path. Then, when Trump publicly came out in January for one bill, some members of Congress were caught off guard. They questioned whether Trump’s legislative affairs team was out of the loop or if they purposefully misled leaders.
“I’m not sure whose interests within the administration this OLA team represents, but it doesn’t seem to be President Trump’s,” the previously mentioned senior GOP aide told NOTUS.
A White House official aggressively pushed back on that criticism, laying the blame for the lack of legislative action at the House’s feet.
“They’re trying to use their inability to get on the same page to have us resolve their issues,” the White House official said of the House. “And by the way, they can’t get on the same page because there’s a group of people who want to do the presidents agenda and there’s a group of people who don’t want to do presidents agenda.”
At the moment, one of the big hang-ups is that top line — whether Republicans are actually going to drastically cut spending or if they’re going to enact policies that (like no taxes on tips, lower corporate tax rates and a slew of new border protections) Trump campaigned on.
According to this White House official, a handful of House members are asking Trump to bless Medicaid cuts as a way to help pay for reconciliation, but they won’t actually lay out what the Medicaid cuts would be.
“We’re not just going to agree to some number in cuts to please a score,” this official said. “Stop being constrained by [the Congressional Budget Office].”
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
Of course, there’s also still the matter of whether reconciliation should be one bill or two. In the Senate, Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, is beginning to mark up bill one of two, much to the dismay of House Republican leaders.
“I’ve talked at length with Lindsey Graham at the Super Bowl, and this week with the president. Lindsey and I, there’s no daylight between us,” Johnson told reporters on Monday. “We all want exactly the same things.”
Johnson added that he told Graham, “if the Senate sends us a bill that is a nonstarter over here, it will just sit.”
While Republicans in the House are increasingly stressing over a Trump legislative agenda that appears to be slipping away, senators are less concerned.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Tuesday insisted that, while the two chambers are on different paths, the work is “complimentary.”
“I’m glad that, at this point, he’s saying, ‘You all work it out,’” Sen. Cynthia Lummis said of Trump. “It gives us some leeway.”
“When the president needs to lean in, he has no problem leaning in,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, another close ally of the president. “He’s not afraid to do that.”
“Right now,” Mullin added, “if he were to weigh in, he’d have to pick sides.”
For Sen. John Cornyn, there’s no reason to be stressed about Trump sitting on the sidelines.
“He’s made pretty clear that he’s for whatever works,” Cornyn said.
“I don’t think failure is an option,” he added.
—
This story has been updated to clarify a quote from a White House official.
Reese Gorman and Ursula Perano are reporters at NOTUS.