GOP rifts open over Trump agenda as legislative landmines await new Congress

By Manu Raju, Sarah Ferris and Lauren Fox, CNN

(CNN) — For more on the GOP agenda in the new Congress, watch CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday with Manu Raju” this Sunday at 8 a.m. ET and 11 a.m ET.

Republicans from Capitol Hill to the White House are battling internally over the basic tenets of Donald Trump’s first 100-day agenda — including which priorities should come first — in a preview of the landmines looming over the GOP’s ambitious agenda despite controlling all of Washington.

John Thune, the incoming Senate majority leader, is preparing to move quickly on two of the president-elect’s top issues — border security and energy production — while punting on a tax bill until later in 2025. But that’s caused deep anger among some senior House members, who warn that waiting on the tax issue could mean killing it altogether.

And there’s a push among some conservative Republicans to toss all of Trump’s priorities into one catchall bill. But GOP critics warn that doing so would cause such a plan to collapse under its own weight — especially given the complexities of tax policy coupled with tight margins in the House, where one Republican defection could scuttle the entire agenda.

The GOP will operate with one of the smallest congressional majorities in history while contending with major deadlines like averting a government shutdown as early as March and a potentially catastrophic debt default next year. And with just six weeks until Inauguration Day, Republicans across the party are growing anxious over how to deliver on Trump’s priorities in some of the toughest possible political conditions.

”This is a once in a generational opportunity to do a lot of things,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a senior Texas Republican who served as the whip in Trump’s first term. “And I am not sure everyone is on the same page.”

The clash comes as House and Senate GOP leaders fully recognize they have little time to use the political capital Trump is eager to expend from his election victory.

Yet while many Senate Republicans argue a narrow border and energy policy bill would help deliver an early win for Trump, many on the House side worry about squandering momentum for the rest of Trump’s agenda — namely, taxes.

“I am worried that everyday Americans will face a tax increase if Congress doesn’t act appropriately,” said Rep. Jason Smith, a powerful chairman who leads the GOP’s tax-writing panel and wants Congress to focus on taxes in the first package. “The president campaigned on it. It’s a priority. They should listen to the 76 million Americans who asked for tax relief.”

At a private meeting of the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday, Smith’s fellow GOP tax-writers agreed. Republicans in the room stressed that tax policy shouldn’t be left out because Congress might not get a “second bite at the apple,” according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

Despite one-party rule, there will still be limited chances to enact new policy through Congress without bipartisan support. Typically, any senator can filibuster legislation, which would require 60 votes to overcome in a Senate where Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority.

Republicans are looking at passing the bill using the budget process, known on Capitol Hill as reconciliation, which allows bills to be approved by a simple majority (51 votes) in the Senate. But approving each reconciliation bill requires two steps and a marathon series of votes, and the legislation must pass muster with strict budget rules in the Senate.

Typically reconciliation bills are attempted once a year during single-party rule in Congress. Smith argues history hasn’t been kind to majorities trying to do it twice — especially since Republicans will hold a 220-215 House majority and will lose three more seats due to resignations early in the new year.

“Like I said, if you look at history over the last 25 years, there’s not been two reconciliations that have been signed into law in the same year, and why would we think in a (220-215) majority … that we would over perform?” Smith told CNN.

But many senators argue that jumpstarting Trump’s term with a border bill — packed with widely popular GOP ideas — is a better move politically than risking a dragged-out tax battle.

“On tax, we always knew it was going to be very complicated. We want to do it right,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican up for reelection in 2026. “I have no objections to doing that secondary as long as we are working on it at the same time. It is going to take longer to get it done, but we want to do it correctly.“

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina who is also up for reelection in two years, added: “We won saying we want to solve the border so I think it’s good policy and good politics to say he wants to lead with it. When we do the tax reconciliation, it’s gonna be big and complex.”

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican who used to serve in the House, said passing their agenda “will be complicated.”

“Jason Smith doesn’t think that’s possible to take more than one bite of the apple,” she said. “And he may be right in the House. He has a pretty good read on how the House rolls. The House and the Senate don’t roll the same.”

Johnson in the middle

One of the most influential voices in the debate will be Speaker Mike Johnson, the soft-spoken GOP leader who will have zero votes to lose on the floor early next year — tied with the narrowest House margin in history as the result of expected vacancies when some members leave to join the Trump administration.

In an interview with CNN, Johnson didn’t take a position on how to sequence the bills, arguing that “we all have the same priorities” and indicating the talks with Senate leaders and Trump’s team were still taking shape.

“Look, I can make a case for different sequences of how we do all these priorities, but my job here is to build consensus,” Johnson said. “So we’re working to do that in a bicameral fashion.”

Asked about the challenges of passing the bills with no margin for error, Johnson quipped: “It’s going to be very easy. We know how to work with a small majority.”

With the razor-thin majority, House Republicans may have an unusual amount of leverage in the typically Senate-driven process of crafting a filibuster-proof legislative package. (For President Joe Biden’s own version, party leaders were repeatedly forced to rewrite their bill thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin. For Trump, the trouble could come from the House chamber instead.)

“They have a narrower margin than even we do, and so we may have to defer to the House a little bit,” Lummis said of the House, where she served eight years.

“It’s really unusual,” the Wyoming Republican said. “It might take a new attitude adjustment over here.”

GOP Rep. Kevin Hern, another Republican on the tax-writing panel, said he believes Johnson and other fellow House members will help make a strong case not to leave the tax issue behind.

“You only get one bite at the apple and taxes are important to all Americans,” Hern said. “We understand the politics on this side of the House. I think the speaker, the Senate leader and our chairmen are working on that, to better understand how the House works.”

Most of the GOP’s discussions on these bills have so far taken place at the leadership level. But Johnson plans to bring his members into the debate immediately after members’ swearing-in next month for the new Congress. Johnson will hold a Saturday members’ session on Trump’s legislative plans on January 4, according to people familiar with the plans.

“I think what is going to matter the most is whether, between the two of them, Mike Johnson and Donald Trump can discipline whatever the number is and keep them united,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota.

GOP tries to avoid 2017 repeat

Top Hill Republicans have spent nearly a year trying to make sure Trump’s first-100-day agenda avoids the fate it had his first term, when his top priority — repealing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare — failed in dramatic fashion.

A group of House GOP chairmen first sat down in May to plot this massive package under a potential Trump presidency, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Since then, those Republicans have been drafting bills and compiling spreadsheets of ideas on how to pay for their plans.

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee and Budget Committee have spent months preparing to manage what is expected to be an arduous fight to pass another tax bill, which will extend some of the provisions from the 2017 tax bill but could also include new provisions expected to cost billions. Trump has floated not taxing the tips workers make as well as not taxing Social Security payments to seniors, both of which would increase the price tag of any potential tax bill.

Meanwhile, the Budget Committee has been focused on options to offset the cost of some of those provisions.

A source familiar with the discussions says the committee has begun to identify potential spending cuts to pay for the tax bill, including repealing Biden’s executive order on student loans; issuing work requirements for able-bodied, childless working age recipients of Medicaid; and repealing some of the green energy tax incentives from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. But, as with any new spending cut, ensuring Republicans are united could be a massive lift with such a narrow majority.

“My experience has been trying to convince people to cut it, it’s kind of like going to heaven,” GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said of spending cuts. “Everybody’s ready to go to heaven, but nobody’s willing to take the trip.”

But even the GOP’s push to pass a border-focused bill may not be easy.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who is a close Trump ally, told CNN that Republicans shouldn’t consider anything less than the House’s own hard-line border package, known as HR 2, even though such a plan could run afoul of the Senate’s budget rules.

“I think HR 2 would be the floor of what we need,” Clyde said. And he added that he wants to see at least some tax policy in the package: “I think we can probably do a little bit of the tax aspect of it,” specifically citing Trump’s pledge to end taxes on tips.

But even some veteran Senate Republicans warned that passing two reconciliation bills will be a tall order.

“I think it’s going to be difficult,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

CNN’s Morgan Rimmer contributed.

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