Senate and House Republicans are setting the table for what they hope — and increasingly expect — will be unified GOP control of the White House and Congress after the election.
Republican leaders in both chambers are mapping out an agenda for Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in office, and they expect to move quickly on a massive budget reconciliation package that would fulfill his promise of cutting taxes by trillions of dollars.
Staff for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Senate GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.), Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) met recently to map out their agenda for 2025 if Election Day is a big success for their party, according to sources familiar with discussions.
In addition, Johnson, who has said he intends to run for reelection as Speaker if Republicans keep the House, has kept in regular contact with Trump in the run-up to the election, and Scalise, another Trump ally, says he has spoken to the GOP presidential nominee about his top priorities for 2025.
GOP policymakers are looking at funding a major new border security initiative that would include completion of Trump’s signature border wall and possibly defunding parts of the government that Trump allies argue have become “weaponized” under the Biden administration.
But the top priority of Republican leaders in both chambers will be to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — Trump’s signature legislative achievement — before it expires at the end of 2025.
How far they go beyond that will be a subject of intense debate among Republican lawmakers in the months ahead, assuming Trump defeats Vice President Harris and Republicans win back control of the Senate and keep their House majority.
“The plotting, the strategizing and trying to get prepared for [budget] reconciliation has been going for several months,” a Senate GOP aide said. “Over the August recess and over this October recess, those efforts have been ramping up a lot.
“McConnell’s folks and Thune’s folks have been leading the effort on our side,” the aide added.
“A lot of the House committees have been putting work in on this; some are further along than others,” the source added. “Efforts are underway. Hitting the ground running is something everyone wants to be able to do.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who is poised to become the new Senate Republican whip in the next Congress, told The Hill he has been meeting with the heads of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, to help put together a road map for Trump’s first 100 days.
“The transition team is more prepared. They are better staffed [than Trump’s team was after the 2016 election], and they are laser focused on getting out of the gates quickly,” he added.
Republican sources say McConnell, Thune and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who is poised to become chair of the Senate Finance Committee in a Republican majority, are spearheading the early discussions on the first major bill Republicans hope to move in 2025.
Thune, who is running to succeed McConnell as GOP leader, was a key architect of 2017 tax reform bill. He is a member of the Finance Committee as well.
He has led the Republican push to repeal the estate tax, ease the tax burden on doctors, nurses and other professionals who cross state lines for work, and this summer introduced bipartisan legislation to allow employers to contribute up to $5,250 tax-free to their employee’s student loans.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is running against Thune to become the next GOP leader and is another member of the Finance panel, has also been involved in the discussions.
Johnson told Senate Republicans in June that he wanted to pass as ambitious a package as possible during Trump’s first year in office if he wins a second term.
The Speaker pitched GOP senators over the summer on including tax cuts, spending cuts and regulatory reforms into legislation that Republicans would move under the Senate’s budget reconciliation process, which would enable them to circumvent a Democratic filibuster.
Controversial legislation otherwise requires 60 votes to advance through the upper chamber. But Republicans could employ special budgetary rules to fast-track legislation if they control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“He’s pretty clear that they want to try to go big, and that means more than just extending the tax cuts,” Cornyn said after meeting with Johnson this summer.
One GOP aide argued the reconciliation package needs to address the border issue given how much Trump has emphasized it during the campaign.
“Dealing with the problem at the border is something the president has said will be one of his primary priorities and objectives if he’s elected,” the aide said. “It would be a mistake to come in and do a reconciliation bill that’s just an extension of [the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] and not deal with these other major issues, which are what President Trump has been talking in his bid to be elected.”
Scalise, the No. 2-ranking House GOP leader, told a reporter Monday that Trump has already communicated his top priorities for 2025 to the Republican leadership.
“I’ve already talked to President Trump about the top priorities he would want,” Scalise told NOTUS during a trip to the border in McAllen, Texas.
“The main things we’ve been talking about is getting the economy back on track and securing the border,” he said. “Of course, those are the top issues right now. I’m sure we’ll get into, you know, helping lower the cost of health care, addressing transparency in health care, which doesn’t exist right now.”
On the other side of the Capitol, McConnell and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, including Thune, have formed policy groups to review the expiring Trump-era law that overhauled the tax code nearly a decade ago.
Crapo told Bloomberg earlier this year that the groups would discuss every aspect of the expiring tax breaks to prepare for next year’s tax debate.
Sources familiar with the talks say they are preparing for all scenarios, including split party control of Congress or the possibility that Democrats retain control of the White House.
Republican lawmakers and aides, however, are growing increasingly confident that Trump will defeat Harris based on how polls are now trending. They hope his victory will be enough to propel Senate and House Republican candidates to victory on his coattails.
Trump is now dead even with Harris in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, three states viewed as crucial to Democrats’ hopes of keeping the White House.