President-elect Donald Trump left Senate Republicans on Wednesday night still scratching their heads over how best to proceed on his agenda after a more than hourlong meeting at the Capitol.
Trump repeatedly touted to reporters the “great unity” in the party, even as there was no breakthrough on whether Congress should proceed on the so-called budget reconciliation process with a one- or two-bill strategy.
The uncertainty threatens to delay passage of legislative priorities that include extending tax cuts, addressing illegal immigration, and rolling back Biden-era energy policies.
“There’s great unity. Whether it’s one bill or two bills, it’s going to get done one way or the other,” Trump told reporters at the Capitol. “I think there’s a lot of talk about two and there’s a lot of talk about one, but it doesn’t matter; the end result is the same. We’re going to get something done that’s going to be reducing taxes and creating a lot of jobs and all of the other things that you know about. But this was a really unified meeting.”
The meeting, described by Republicans in the room as a listening session for Trump, presented the opportunity for senators to lobby the incoming president on a two-bill strategy they say would generate quicker policy wins early in his administration.
In private, Trump still expressed preference for one “big, beautiful bill” but is not opposed if congressional leaders take the Senate’s approach.
Part of the discussion centered on proceeding with one bill but resorting to two if lawmakers reach an impasse. The tax cuts, in particular, are expected to be difficult to negotiate, while House conservatives want a hike in the federal debt ceiling to be offset with steep spending cuts.
“If the House can deliver one big, beautiful bill and do it in a timely manner? Then the Senate will be obligated to pick it up,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said. “If they get bogged down, and maybe we switch gears and go to two. I think we got to let the process work out first.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who moderated the meeting with Trump, told reporters the two-bill approach was still “very much alive” after their meeting, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) signaled a different message earlier in the day. He said that a cross-chamber decision could be made on Thursday.
Johnson favors a one-bill strategy and has a zero-vote margin that may very well dictate the GOP’s path forward.
“The president was listening very intently as to why there is great merit to a two-bill strategy. But what we want to do is set ourselves up for success,” said Capito, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate. “There’s still a lot of openness to the best strategy that the president chooses, in which direction he wants to go.”
Trump’s visit marked the first face-to-face encounter with Republican senators since they retook the majority. It came as he and his wife, Melania, paid their respects to the late President Jimmy Carter lying in repose in the Capitol Rotunda.
Prior to his Capitol Hill visit, Trump met with members of the Carter family at Blair House, a guest residence that sits across the street from the White House.
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“They were lovely. They were really very sad, but also, they were celebrating because he was a very fine man,” Trump said of the Carters. “I knew him a little bit, but I knew him only as a fine man.”
The state funeral for Carter will be held Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral in the nation’s capital. Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100.
