Vice President JD Vance told Senate Republicans on Wednesday that Donald Trump prefers the House’s one-bill approach to his legislative agenda. But Vance didn’t put a stake in the Senate’s competing approach — as a backup.
Senate Republicans took the message, delivered during a closed-door lunch, as a sign that they have a green light from the administration to move forward with their two-bill budget plan this week. It would tee up a border, defense and energy bill, saving an overhaul of the tax code for a separate bill later this year.
“We’re moving forward tomorrow,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after the lunch. “The president prefers one big, beautiful bill — so do I — but you always need a Plan B around here.”
Senate Republicans made the point about needing a backup to Vance, and he didn’t disagree with that assertion, Graham added.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a Budget Committee member, said that while Vance relayed Trump’s preference for a single bill, “he likes, and the president likes, the idea of the two-pronged approach.”
Vance declined to comment on the specifics of the budget plan to a pack of reporters as he left the Senate GOP lunch.
The Senate GOP’s vow to plow forward came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said earlier Wednesday that they would stick with their plan. But some GOP senators made clear that it was just “for now” in case they got hard guidance from Vance that they needed to nix their strategy altogether.
Instead, GOP leaders said that Vance’s message was that Trump likes having options. The Senate moving forward with its two-bill approach, they argued, would maintain that.
“All I can say is: I think our colleagues are on board with the idea of proceeding and moving forward in a way that hopefully gets us an outcome here in the Senate, and then we’ll see what the House is able to achieve next week,” Thune told reporters after the lunch.
Under the Senate’s timeline, Republicans are expected to adopt their budget resolution late Thursday or on Friday. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is expected to be the only Republican senator who votes against it, though others questioned why they were moving forward given Trump’s endorsement of the House bill.
“If the president supports it and … I have some assurance of that, then I support it. It just seems a little bizarre to me,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) “I’m just a little baffled as to what we’re doing, to be honest with you.”
Added Paul: “I don’t want to stay up all night to do something that is never going to become law,” he said, referring to the marathon “vote-a-rama” expected later this week.
Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
