Republicans Divided Over How to Pass Trump’s Agenda

Johnson says Republicans will work out their legislative strategy.
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg

Happy Monday! Today marks the fourth anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history, the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol that temporarily disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. The scene inside and outside the House chamber was much different today. With Washington, D.C. under a heavy blanket of snow, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over a placid joint session of Congress to officially certify Donald Trump’s election to a second term in the White House. The process took just 30 minutes.

“The peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy,” Harris said in a video message posted to X before the certification. “As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy or tyranny.”

Trump posted that today would be a “big moment in history,” and before the certification he posted a picture from four years ago of the crowd of his supporters around the Washington Monument. An unnamed senior adviser told CNN that Trump’s mindset today was one of “pure vindication.”

Here’s what else is happening.

One Bill or Two? Republicans Split on Strategy to Pass Trump Agenda

With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in two weeks, Republican leaders are speeding ahead with plans to quickly enact their sweeping agenda. Just how they hope to accomplish it — whether in one massive bill or two separate ones — is still up in the air as Republican factions jockey for their preferred approach.

Speaker Mike Johnson told House Republicans at a planning retreat over the weekend that Trump wants to roll his border changes, energy policy and tax cuts into one huge package to be passed via the budget reconciliation process. Johnson said in a Fox News interview on Sunday that he envisions getting the package through the House by early April, or by Memorial Day at the latest, and that he wants the bill to also address the debt ceiling, which likely needs to be raised or suspended by sometime in June, if not sooner.

Trump endorsed the idea of “one powerful Bill” in a social media post on Sunday in which he said that tariffs would help cover the costs. “Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People,” he wrote. “Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible.”

The single-bill approach preferred by Johnson would represent a shift from a two-step strategy that Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republican leaders had been planning. That would involve passing a border and energy package first and leaving the tax cuts for a second reconciliation bill. The idea would be to secure a key win for the new administration within its first weeks while buying time for the House GOP to rebuild its majority after the departure of two members who are leaving to work for Trump.

On the other side, Rep. Jason Smith, the Republican chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, has pushed for one bill, arguing that, despite the challenges involved, it would be the best way to ensure that the 2017 tax cuts do not expire at the end of the year as currently scheduled. The border and energy elements of the plan could also help bridge intraparty divides on taxes and revenues, securing necessary votes that might otherwise be in question. Smith insisted Monday that Republicans had settled on the single-bill approach.

Yet Trump and Johnson both suggested Monday that they remain open to the two-bill idea.

"While I favor one bill, I also want to get everything passed. And you know, there are some people that don't necessarily agree with it," Trump told talk show host Hugh Hewitt Monday morning, according to Politico. Trump acknowledged that a single bill would take longer, though he reportedly said he could “live with” that and it would be “cleaner” that way.

Johnson similarly left the door ajar. “Some people like the one-bill strategy, some people like the two-bill strategy. We will work that out. I’m in dialogue this morning with Sen. Thune, and the two houses will get together and we’ll get it done,” he told reporters.

Thune also signaled that no final decision has been reached. “We're working through all that,” he said. “The process issues to me are a lot less important than the results."

Whether they pursue one bill or two, Republicans may still face a host of challenges in pushing through their plans. Some elements of their agenda may not fit within the narrow rules governing the use of the reconciliation process, which is limited to changes in spending, revenues and the debt limit and can’t raise the deficit beyond the 10-year budget window.

Thune has also pledged to keep the Senate filibuster in place, and he has reportedly indicated that he would oppose any effort to overrule the Senate parliamentarian on what qualifies for inclusion under the reconciliation process.

Trump Doubles Down on Universal Tariff Policy

President-elect Trump has vowed to impose a new slate of tariffs on imported goods as part of an effort to boost domestic production, raise federal revenues and punish competing nations, but the exact details of the plan are still unknown.

During the campaign, Trump said he envisioned across-the-board tariff increases of 10% to 20%, with higher rates on China and possibly Mexico and Canada, but The Washinton Post’s Jeff Stein reported Monday that Trump’s aides were considering a less comprehensive set of tariffs that focus on critical sectors such as defense and energy.

Trump quickly pushed back on the reporting. “The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong,” the president-elect said on his social media platform. “It's just another example of Fake News.”

Still, the incoming administration has yet to produce a proposal, and the Post report highlights some of the tensions Trump’s advisers are likely dealing with while working on the policy details. While Trump has expressed profound faith in the efficacy of tariffs — “The Tariffs, and Tariffs alone, created this vast wealth for our Country,” he said last week, referring to the 19th century. “Tariffs will pay off our debt and, MAKE AMERICA WEALTHY AGAIN!” — some economists have warned that tariffs could be counterproductive, raising prices on all kinds of goods for American consumers while risking a reignition of inflation.

An unnamed Trump adviser quoted by the Post highlighted the tensions in play. “The sector-based universal tariff is a little bit easier for everybody to stomach out the gate,” the adviser said. “The thought is if you’re going to do universal tariffs, why not at least start with these targeted measures? And it would still give CEOs a massive incentive to start making their products here.”

The bottom line: Trump is sticking to his guns on an across-the-board tariff increase, but it’s too soon to tell if his stance is more a matter of pre-negotiation rhetoric or an unshakable desire to ratchet import fees higher for every nation that sells goods in the U.S.

Numbers of the Day: 1,600 and 1,300

Nearly 1,600 people have faced criminal charges over their roles in the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as part of a coordinated effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep then-President Donald Trump in power at the end of his first term. Of those facing charges, more than 650 have been sentenced to prison, with their sentences totaling about 1,300 years, The Washington Post’s Philip Bump notes Monday.

“It’s easy, four years later, to forget the scale of what occurred,” Bump writes. “It’s particularly easy for those seeking a reason to exonerate Trump or to minimize his actions. But the justice system offers us a reminder: Hundreds of people have been ordered to spend cumulative centuries behind bars for engaging in the day’s violence in service of Trump’s desire to retain power.”

Now that Trump has been reelected, some of those prison sentences will likely go unserved, at least in part. Trump has vowed to pardon January 6 defendants as soon as he takes office — “I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes,” he recently told Time — though it’s unclear how widespread such pardons might be.

Meanwhile, the memory of the January 6 attack continues to soften, at least for some voters. In a poll taken soon after the violence occurred, 51% of Republicans said they “strongly disapprove” of what happened at the Capitol. As of last month, that judgment has moderated, with just 30% of Republicans now saying they strongly disapprove of the events that day.

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