Speaker Mike “The Disappointment” Johnson was reelected Speaker of the House solely on the basis of his support from President Donald Trump. If President Trump had not flipped two votes, we might very well still be watching a long-drawn-out battle for the Speaker’s gavel.
Despite our reservations about Mr. Johnson, getting the Speaker elected on Day One of the new 119th Congress and setting Congress to work on the MAGA agenda was the best outcome we could hope for, absent a stronger candidate for Speaker.
However, Johnson and Trump are already diverging in their vision for how the new Congress is going to implement President Trump’s plans and policies.
According to President Trump’s statements to the media and posts to social media he wants one big “reconciliation package” to address the border, energy security and tax relief passed early (Trump referred to the single reconciliation bill as “one big beautiful bill). The idea being to bundle all these major campaign promises into one package that will be difficult for Republicans, even the squishy ones, to reject or nitpick.
John Soloman writing for Just the News reported Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, has also been adamant that it should be one bill only, citing the slim margin held by the GOP in the House.
“There have not been two reconciliations that have been signed into law in the same year,” Smith said last month. “And why would we think in a majority of 219 to 215 that we would over perform?”
However, not too long ago Speaker Johnson was also talking about a “two bill” strategy that would move the border security package immediately.
This is also the preference of the conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.
“There are a group of us who support breaking it up into two pieces,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told Fox News during an interview. “The first piece, a very small border piece where we give the president the money that he needs to secure our southern border and start deporting illegal, criminal aliens.”
He said that a two-bill plan would be the fastest way for Trump to get funds for his plans for the southern border.
“The president needs some funds now and that’s the quickest way to do it, and that’s the way, again, a group of us think we should do that,” Harris stated. “Saving the large, big, beautiful bill till the summer because it will take time to iron out.”
The two bill strategy has also been endorsed by a coalition of conservative Senators and House Members led by Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who posted on X a letter they sent to President Trump and Speakers Johnson.
The key point in the Scott plan to implement the Trump agenda is to move the border enforcement funding first and lock it in for four years.
And there’s another problem that the Trump teams to have glossed over, but which means a lot on Capitol Hill – a campaign promise by many Republicans to require one subject matter per bill.
Indeed, Senator Rand Paul, normally a pretty solid MAGA vote, has a bill that would require Congress to limit bills to one subject matter.
As of yet no one is quite sure how President Trump and Speaker Johnson plan to square this circle, but apparently the President-elect has invited a group of key Republicans to Mar-a-Lago for pre-Inauguration strategy session that may result in a path forward.
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