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Senate Republicans are coalescing behind a two-step 2025 agenda to sell to President-elect Donald Trump and the miniscule House majority: Border security, then taxes.
The question of which issue to tackle first is critical for the GOP, which will take full control of Washington in January — but with a House majority that will temporarily shrink to a single vote. That makes quick passage of a tax bill difficult, but top Republicans see a border bill as the easier first accomplishment to deliver to a demanding Trump.
The GOP proponents of a border-first approach believe President-elect Donald Trump will appreciate their urgent focus on one of his top political priorities. Their most influential voice is incoming Senate Republican leader John Thune, who on Thursday revealed plans to keep the chamber in session for 10 straight weeks at the start of 2025.
Thune’s goal: delivering a filibuster-proof border bill that spends as much as $85 billion by the end of that marathon session, according to a person familiar with party strategy. He has the backing of key Trump allies.
“People I’m talking to that will be serving in the administration, this is definitely the direction they want to go. And it makes sense to me,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Semafor. “This is the most doable thing. That’s what we should do.”
Not everyone is on board yet; House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., notably prefers one big party-line bill that could roll all of Republicans’ priorities together. Still, GOP senators are optimistic that both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson will endorse their plans to wait on a tax bill until Johnson’s majority gets padded to replace members who are departing for the new administration.
Republican senators still smart at their stumble out of the gate in 2017, when they chose the complex repeal of the Affordable Care Act as their first use of the filibuster-proofing power known as budget reconciliation. (That push famously failed in the Senate.)
Many of them now see a complex tax bill as a similarly huge challenge, except the roles are flipped: The House will host the bigger intra-party fight, particularly until Johnson’s majority goes back up to 220 votes.
“I think Johnson’s thinking is that they can’t pass a tax bill with 217 members. They need to recharge those three seats. That was my understanding,” said one Senate Republican who attended this week’s meeting between senators and Johnson. A border bill, this Republican added, is less divisive than the tax debate is likely to be in the House.
In fact, Republicans lost 12 House votes on their final tax bill in 2017, many over its new cap on state and local tax deductions.
But spending more money on a border wall, immigration agents and detention beds, paid for with revenues from new oil and gas production, is a relatively unifying issue for the party. Trump is likely to pair that funding with executive orders cracking down on immigration, Republicans say, and they’re anticipating a political win on the issue by next spring.
“Border is a huge priority. It’s something we think we can get on right now, get going on and get it done. It’s reasonably finite,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. “The tax thing is more complicated … it’s just going to take more work.”
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Republicans are under enormous pressure to score points quickly for Trump. That’s already proving a challenge when it comes to confirming his Cabinet, as defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth struggles to gain momentum on the Hill.
Which is why Republicans are gravitating toward a more simple strategy for 2025 that will still be fairly difficult. The House and Senate will need to quickly agree on a budget resolution in January to get moving on a legislative package that can evade a filibuster.
In addition to passing two budgets and devising two separate reconciliation packages, each with separate parliamentary negotiations over what can be included, Senate Republicans will have to handle up to four debilitating “vote-a-ramas” – unlimited votes on symbolic amendments that almost always last all night.
Not to mention that paying for the border bill could rob the tax bill of potential revenue. Even so, Senate Republicans are bought in.
“The prevailing wisdom is: Let’s get some wins with the smaller version, Trump’s going to want to come out of the gate with border. It makes a lot of sense,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., a Trump ally. “And the tax stuff, might be better to deal with that a little bit later.”
Smith told CNBC that the Senate strategy is “very foolish” and said the best way to get votes in the House is to pass a larger tax, border and energy package together. There’s some lingering tension between the two chambers: The Senate GOP declined to pass Smith’s bipartisan tax package this year.
Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the incoming Republican Study Committee chair, said he “can’t imagine a world where [the border] is not at least part of the first attempt.”
Given the awkward dynamics of a Senate vs. House clash, some Republicans aren’t fully committing right now. Incoming Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said this week that “the sequencing, that decision will be made by President Trump in consultation with the Senate and House leadership.”
Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., another Trump ally, said that “we need to keep both options open.”
Burgess’s view
Republicans know they need to maximize an opportunity that doesn’t come along that often. And on its surface, a two-step party-line agenda is designed to do just that.
Republicans aren’t going to let tax cuts expire next year, but it could take many months to devise a package that can pass both chambers of Congress. That’s a recipe for frustration at the White House, where Trump is going to want results.
So Thune’s idea is designed to create some breathing room for Republicans to finish the tax plan – and give Johnson the time he needs to refill seats from the departing Reps. Elise Stefanik, Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz. Unless Trump doesn’t like it, it seems like the easier approach at the moment. But it’s no done deal.
Kadia Goba contributed to this report.