President Donald Trump is “playing both sides” in getting his legislative agenda through Congress, according to two people familiar with his conversations about what’s happening on Capitol Hill — and he is growing increasingly ambivalent about whether it happens via competing House or Senate approaches.
Trump last week appeared to endorse Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid for “one big, beautiful bill,” then later in the week praised Senate Majority Leader John Thune as he advanced an alternative plan that would split Trump’s agenda into two pieces.
In fact, the two people said Trump just wants to see some movement. He said as much Tuesday afternoon as House leaders scrambled to win GOP votes to advance their plan.
“So the House has a bill and the Senate has a bill, and I’m looking at them both, and I’ll make decisions,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “I know the Senate is doing very well and the House is doing very well. But each one of them has things that I like. So we’ll see if we can come together.”
Earlier in the day he had placed a call to one of the Republican holdouts in the House, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee. Burchett said afterward it was a “nice conversation” but he remained undecided about the House plan backed by Johnson.
One of the people familiar with Trump’s conversations said the president wasn’t planning to make calls to whip votes for the House budget, but the chamber’s GOP leaders pushed him to get on the phone with some holdouts Tuesday afternoon. That person also said that the White House team is split on which approach to take, with policy chief Stephen Miller and budget czar Russell Vought advocating for Senate’s two-bill approach.
Trump is also increasingly wary of the Medicaid cuts that could be teed up as part of the House plan, fearing the wrath of his base. MAGA influencers, including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon, have been regularly railing against the idea.
