CNN
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House Speaker Mike Johnson informed Republicans in a closed-door meeting Saturday that Donald Trump He favored adopting a comprehensive agenda, sources present said — a key announcement fraught with risk but one that paves the way for realizing the president-elect’s ambitious plans.
The effort to include border, energy and tax policies in a single bill is a departure from the Senate Republican leader. John Thune it was, but it’s also represents an evolution in how Trump’s team has begun to view the legislative landscape in recent weeks. A source familiar with the change told CNN that it became clear with the spending bill debacle and a narrow race for speakers that there will be very little wiggle room to maneuver two separate bills – one on border and energy and the other on tax policy.
Thune and other Republican senators had argued that reviving Trump’s term with a border and energy bill — filled with widely popular Republican ideas — and delaying a tax bill until later in year would be a better political decision than risking a dragged-out bill. our tax battle.
But several key House Republicans, including Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, have spent months pushing for a single bill, arguing that two measures would become too unruly in the House, where the Republican Party has decision-making power. extremely narrow majority.
“It shows that the best and quickest approach to get to President Trump is a nice, big package,” Smith told CNN last month.
A massive bill will take much longer to negotiate and will represent a huge challenge for a party with so little margin for error. A bill of this magnitude will have to pass through several relevant committees and will likely take much longer than a more restrictive bill on borders and energy. When Thune laid out his vision after landing his role as Senate majority leader in November, he set an ambitious 100-day sprint to pass a narrow bill that addressed borders and energy, but not tax policy.
While senators argued that the two-separate-bill strategy would help deliver a quick victory for Trump — as a tax overhaul as well as a border and energy package would take longer — Many lawmakers feared losing momentum from the rest of Trump’s agenda. Several Republicans in the House of Representatives fear that Congress will not get a “second bite at the apple,” according to several people familiar with the discussions, and do not want to leave aside tax policy, which was one of the main agendas of Trump campaign.
As Republicans attempt to lay out a clear strategy for Trump’s agenda weeks before his inauguration, the promise of a single bill helped Johnson win re-election to the presidency on Friday, handing a quick victory to Trump – who had supported the Louisiana Republican and called on his behalf. It also helped the conference avoid a drawn-out fight, which the president-elect said could undermine confidence in the Republican takeover of Washington.
GOP Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia told CNN on Friday that Johnson and Team Trump’s promise to promote a single bill helped him vote for the president.
And Republican Rep. Keith Self of Texas, who flipped his vote and backed Johnson at the last minute, also told CNN on Friday that he looked forward to introducing a “big, beautiful” bill now that the presidential race presidency was over.
Describing the conversation with Trump that led him to change his vote, Self said, “The message was clear.”
“The message was that he wants what everyone wants: for his agenda to pass,” Self said. “And that was my message to him: ‘Mr. President, we need a strong negotiating team.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.