Trump’s push for quick passage of ‘one powerful bill’ meets realities on Capitol Hill

By Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump wants to put his entire agenda into a single, massive bill – and he wants it done “quickly.”

But he will soon meet the realities of Capitol Hill, even under single-party Republican rule.

Republicans are publicly and privately acknowledging the enormous task ahead in tying together a sprawling package that includes new immigration laws, energy policies and a complex tax overhaul – along with an increase of the national debt limit and spending cuts to federal programs.

Plus, they’ll have to maintain near total unanimity in a narrowly divided Congress, especially in the unruly House where Republicans are already expressing competing views on what the policy should entail.

On top of that, the Senate’s complex budget rules could rein in some of the GOP’s most ambitious agenda items, all as Republican leaders in both chambers are already divided over whether to pursue Trump’s agenda as one big bill or divide it up into two smaller ones.

Some are bracing for a rocky road ahead.

“The House is a very thoughtful but dysfunctional body right now,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma and a former House member who is close to Speaker Mike Johnson.

Behind the scenes, Trump’s advisers are already beginning to make the case to Republicans on Capitol Hill that they may not get everything they want. As members of the House GOP Conference huddled this weekend to plot their 2025 agenda, Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, stressed that Republicans must unite quickly behind a policy package that delivers on Trump’s mandate from voters, while acknowledging it may fall short of their ideal bill, according to three Republicans in attendance.

“He understands the enormity of the situation and the unique opportunity we have right now,” said Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. “What he also understands is, we don’t have the gift of time.”

And Hern said Miller understood the reality of a slim majority: “We’re not all gonna get what we want. We can’t all get 100%.”

That message is an early preview of how Trump and his allies will attempt to navigate the many hurdles ahead for his first big policy package. With just two weeks until Trump returns to the White House, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune insist they are on the same page on policy provisions, such as plans to carry out Trump’s mass deportation promises and extend the 2017 GOP tax cuts. But party leaders are still clashing over basic details of the president-elect’s package, including whether to do one bill or two, which signals a difficult stretch ahead with just a single GOP vote to spare in the House and three in the Senate.

Thune has been privately planning a two-bill strategy, focused first on energy and immigration issues – and then worrying about tax policies later – and to move them through a budget process that allows them to pass legislation along party lines rather than acquiring 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. Tax legislation, senators say, is enormously complicated and can take months to hash out.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, another key Trump ally who now chairs the Senate Budget Committee, supports advancing a border bill before addressing tax legislation.

“I think it’s a risk to our country to delay border security,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told CNN on Monday. “So if you’re a tax-cutting person, which I understand, and you’re holding a border bill hostage, I think that’s a dangerous thing.”

Thune downplayed the disagreements on Monday, saying the process is a “lot more important than the results.”

But the new Senate GOP leader also suggested that his preference remains legislation that they can enact quickly – and then taking up the more complicated tax overhaul on a later day.

“I think you can put some points on the board so people can see the results of things that they voted for,” Thune told reporters Monday when asked why he’s advocated the two-bill approach.

Johnson, who plans to meet with Thune soon to hash out their strategy, also downplayed the disagreement.

“The Senate has a little different opinion and perspective on reconciliation and what the wisest strategy is than the House, and that’s OK,” Johnson said Monday, later adding, “We are going to get this mission accomplished.”

“I wouldn’t get too wound up about what the exact strategy is,” Johnson said.

Trump’s 100-day race

But the strategy will ultimately dictate the policy – and will take months to play out under the process the GOP is employing.

In order to accomplish their goals, Republicans will need to act in two steps. First, the House and Senate will have to agree on a non-binding budget blueprint laying out their fiscal goals. Then, Congress will have to draft legislation to meet the goals laid out in the budget blueprint. If lawmakers add provisions that run afoul of budget rules, they can be killed by the Senate parliamentarian.

That tactic – known as reconciliation legislation – has been widely used by parties that control both chambers and the White House to advance their priorities since it’s not subject to a Senate filibuster and can pass with 51 votes.

But it is a heavy lift, requiring a marathon series of votes in the Senate. And many House Republicans believe accomplishing that process twice in a single year it will be next to impossible given the divisions in the ranks. So they believe lumping everything into one bill will make it almost impossible for any Republican to try to kill it.

“We’re going to have 100 good days, and then the honeymoon is off. And I think President Trump realizes that,” Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett said Monday. And the politics will be even more complicated, Burchett warned, “if our egos take over.”

Another GOP lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, is so anxious about the party’s ability to pass legislation this year that he has personally urged Trump to do “as much as he can” by executive order or agency action.

Other Trump’s allies in the House, however, insist they will be able to pass a package as long as lawmakers are willing to drop their personal demands for the sake of the incoming president’s agenda.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, offered some advice for her colleagues on how to get there.

“All of us have to put down our prides, our egos, and learn to cooperate with one another to make one big bill,” Greene said.

Trump himself has muddied the waters by supporting both approaches.

On Sunday, Trump posted on Truth Social that lawmakers were beginning work on “one powerful bill.” But speaking to radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday morning, Trump said he was open to doing two bills.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith — who has been a forceful proponent of doing a single bill — offered a different view to CNN on Monday. The Missouri Republican said the first package “is going to have tax, energy, border, permitting and spending cuts” and “that’s been decided.”

Hours later, when pressed by reporters about Trump’s openness to two bills, Smith said: “When he said his preference is one bill, he just wants it passed.”

Asked whether he was concerned by Trump’s walk-back, Smith lashed out at the reporter for asking the question: “Absolutely not, this is sh*t.”

CNN’s Ted Barrett, Ali Main, Haley Talbot and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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