President-elect Donald Trump is starting to lean heavily on Congress, but it’s all about next year.
Trump is focusing his efforts and spending political capital on ensuring that Republican lawmakers agree to confirm his Cabinet picks and can immediately ramp up to fulfill his 2025 campaign promises.
He regularly talks to senators about his nominees to ensure they are on track for confirmation next year, according to a Trump adviser granted anonymity to discuss the conversations. He speaks with new Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson about his legislative priorities, namely how to quickly incorporate immigration, energy and tax policies into major party bills.
‘Did you hear we have another member? We have 221 members,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) joked. “Trump is present on every issue in the House.”
But he has remained silent, at least publicly, on his preferences on the year-end spending bill and the Dec. 20 government shutdown deadline, despite calls from Republicans to intervene. culture war provisions with the knowledge that Trump will likely take executive action to address the problems. And Trump refused to tip the scales in Senate Republican leadership elections, other than raising the specter that he would use recess appointments to ram through his Cabinet nominees.
“My impression is that he’s very focused on what’s going to happen next and what he’s going to inherit,” Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, an incoming member of the GOP leadership in the Senate, said in an interview.
It shows Trump and Congressional leaders are focused on moving forward next year, hoping to reduce the infighting between the parties and quickly implement their top policy priorities. Republicans have quietly complained that they felt they squandered their majorities in 2017 and squandered their previous Washington trifecta on failed efforts to repeal Obamacare. Divisions are already emerging within the party over the party’s strategy on taxes and the border, but Republican Party leaders are doing their best to get everyone on the same page for next year. In the meantime, they’re putting Congress largely on autopilot into the lame duck.
Johnson in particular has had close ties with Trump as the two Republican leaders plan next year’s legislative agenda. He has met the president-elect several times at Mar-a-Lago and speaks with Trump or members of his team every day. Johnson told reporters he will talk to Trump this weekend before the Army-Navy matchup in Maryland about the party’s budget reconciliation strategy, which is quickly becoming divisive among Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate as some try to pass the border priorities faster and take more time to write. a drastic tax proposal. The budget reconciliation process allows Republicans to bypass a filibuster in the Senate and pass priorities on a party-line basis.
Thune also traveled to Mar-a-Lago to strategize with Trump and his team on next year’s legislative agenda, according to a person granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting. And he regularly talks to Trump about the status of his nominees, according to another person granted anonymity to discuss the conversations.
Trump’s largely passive attitude toward Congress’ year-end business reflects Trump’s handling of the lame duck period after 2016, when the president-elect largely avoided wading into legislative battles on Capitol Hill before launching his accepted office. And if past is prologue, his hands-off approach is unlikely to last. Just look at his allies’ current efforts to pressure Republicans to approve Trump’s most controversial Cabinet picks and bully them into agreeing to their federal spending cuts.
Trump remained largely silent when the 2016 Congress passed short-term government funding in April, passed the defense bill, greenlit hundreds of millions of dollars for Flint, Michigan to address the water crisis, and enacted a sweeping law intended to bring medicines and medical devices to the market more quickly.
The president-elect’s then-team ultimately agreed to Congress’ legislative maneuvering, though Trump largely avoided using his then-nearly ubiquitous Twitter account to intervene. He posted only once on social media, mentioning Congress from November 2016 until Inauguration Day, questioning a House Republican initiative to dismantle an ethics office (they abandoned the initiative). He also called for the cancellation of a contract for a new Air Force One.
But upon taking office, Trump — often using invective via social media — would often push back on legislative priorities or push for the confirmation of his nominees and judicial picks, sometimes upsetting lawmakers at the last minute. And a similar pattern could emerge next year.
“He’s going to get involved as soon as he comes in. There’s no reason for him to do that,” said Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
Trump’s allies on the Hill, members of the Republican leadership and Republican strategists defended Trump’s hands-off approach to the lame duck in interviews. Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and Hill alum, said it is “smart [for Trump] to stay out” and focus on building his administration in the short window he has before January 20.
“He’s obviously quite busy with nominations and filling out his Cabinet and all that,” echoed Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate GOP leadership.
And Trump will have a full plate once he comes to power. Congress won’t adjust spending until March, meaning negotiations on new spending levels will begin in earnest once he takes office. He will also have to deal with raising the debt limit early next year, in addition to the massive party-line budget bills Republicans want to pass.
All of these priorities will test the unity of the Republican Party — with any fighting likely to hinder rapid progress on some of Trump’s biggest priorities.
“There’s a lot he has to deal with,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). And these early machinations “are [a] a good representation of what he has to deal with [in] the Republican Conference.”
Jordain Carney, Olivia Beavers, Ursula Perano and Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.
