Dramatic move Donald Trump plans to deploy to force through sweeping changes

Mike Johnson has told his allies on Capitol Hill that he plans to use the budget reconciliation process to implement major parts of Donald Trump’s policy changes.

Like Democrats under Joe Biden, they plan to use the process that allows them to pass bills on party-line votes, with a simple majority.

The Senate infamously passed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act through budget reconciliation in 2022.

The first priorities will be border security and reviving the tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term.

The president-elect wants the bill to pass the House and Senate and be on his desk in May, just outside his first 100 days in office.

Republicans reportedly held a closed-door meeting at Fort McNair in Washington on Saturday Fox News.

While new Senate Majority Leader John Thune is willing to use the process to pass two bills, Johnson may want to get it all done at once.

Thune detailed a possible two-part strategy that would see senators work on an initial legislative package — energy, border security and defense priorities — that could be passed in the first 30 days of the new administration.

Thune then explained that senators would turn to tax cuts — reviving the expiring tax cuts from Trump’s first term — which is expected to last longer and drag on through the year.

Since 1997, Congress has not passed two reconciliation bills in one year.

Republicans are not ready to eliminate the filibuster, which will make it harder to win votes in the new 53-47 Senate.

The new one Congress met Friday, when lawmakers were sworn in, and the Senate expects to soon begin holding confirmation hearings for key Trump Cabinet nominees — some of whom are already facing resistance.

Republicans have struggled to unite around the details of their agenda, even when they control the instruments of government in Washington.

But divisions are already emerging over various tax and budget cuts, and broader policies such as Trump’s plans for mass deportations of immigrants.

The president-elect faced the first major test of his influence over Republicans in the House of Representatives in a chaotic few days that narrowly avoided a government shutdown.

But it wasn’t a test that Trump passed with flying colors.

Although he received a strong mandate from voters on November 5, ultra-conservative Republicans rejected his Elon Musk-backed demand to lift the debt ceiling.

Thirty-eight fiscal conservatives — including Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — defected Thursday evening, despite Trump’s loud protests on his social media platform TruthSocial.

Then, hours before the deadline on Saturday morning, Congress approved a deal to keep the government funded through February — without lifting the debt ceiling.

Marc Short, Trump’s former director of legislative affairs, warned that the insurrection “did not bode well” for the newly elected president’s bold strategy at the border. Trump’s mass deportation plan is estimated to cost more than $80 billion per year.

The president-elect previously promised that the cost of his plans for the border is “not a matter of a price tag.”

A report from the pro-migrant American Immigration Council estimated that deporting one million migrants a year would cost $88 billion.

Republicans generally support Trump’s plan to secure the border, but many are determined to cut budget spending and not add to the trillions of dollars in debt the United States has amassed.

Interest payments on the country’s debt now exceed the entire defense budget.

Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, is among the members of Trump’s party who rejected the spending deal.

“My position is simple: I will not raise or suspend the debt ceiling (and build up more debt) without significant and real spending cuts. I negotiated that. No excuses,” he wrote.

Roy was an outspoken critic of Johnson, likening the original deal to a “nonsense sandwich.”

“We’re fed this negotiated nonsense, and we’re forced to eat this nonsense sandwich,” he said. “It’s the same thing every year. Make legislation per crisis, make legislation per calendar. Don’t legislate because that’s the right thing to do.”

When Trump takes office in January, nine of the Republicans who voted against the bill will have been replaced.

However, 25 of the Rebel Republicans who voted no won their districts in November by 10 or more points, while nine of them won by more than 30 points.

Now that the Republican Party’s margin in the House of Representatives has shrunk to at least a 220-215 majority — assuming all of Trump’s Cabinet picks are confirmed and Republicans replace them in a special election — he will have to unify the party to get his border plans approved.

Republicans are likely to shift federal funds to pay for construction of Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall and hire staff to round up migrants for deportation.

Congress is expected to work longer weeks, especially in the Senate, which often does not meet on Fridays.

House Republicans united around Mike Johnson on Friday to re-elect him as Speaker of the House of Representatives after a tumultuous vote.

The quick re-election of 52-year-old Johnson as chairman means Republicans avoided the embarrassing pitfall of taking days to choose a leader – as was the case two years ago when they burned 15 ballots in five days before finally settling names with former chairman Kevin McCarthy.

Republicans ultimately sided with Johnson, despite some dissatisfaction from the Republican Party, which voted dramatically against the speaker early on.

With an ultra-slim majority, just two “No” votes from the Republican Party would be enough to keep Johnson from winning, which happened briefly.

Three Republicans have provisionally rejected Johnson. The vote was 216 for Johnson, 215 for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries and three votes for the other candidates.

But the vote was never announced, so lawmakers still had the option to change their ballots.

The three Republicans who voted for other candidates were Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas. But after Johnson huddled with Self and Norman, the two lawmakers changed their votes and supported the incumbent president.

The final total was 218 for Johnson and 215 for Jeffries, giving Johnson a re-election victory on the first ballot.

In celebration of the victory, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Congratulations to Speaker Mike Johnson on receiving an unprecedented vote of confidence in Congress.”