Members of the House Freedom Caucus say they will make the case for their preferred policies and strategy when they meet with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday to discuss his ambitious legislative agenda — bringing preferences that at times clash with those of Trump.
Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.), a Freedom Caucus member who will be in attendance, said that the crux of the meeting will be balancing those sometimes-conflicting priorities.
Moore said the members will ask of Trump: “How can we help you achieve what you want to achieve for the country, but at the same time manage for the fiscal conservatives who don’t want to raise the debt too high, don’t spend too much?”
Congressional Republicans are plotting legislation for Trump’s agenda on the border, energy, tax cuts and other issues — party-line legislation that they aim to push through using a special process called reconciliation, which gives one or two opportunities to bypass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, thus bypassing the need for Democratic support.
But that will require near-unanimous support from Republicans in the House, where the party has a razor-thin majority, meaning opposition from any few Republicans can hold up the bill. That’s a tactic that the Freedom Caucus has often used in the past to push for more conservative legislation.
There is already tension among Republicans not only about whether the agenda should be passed in one or two bills — Trump has said his preference is “one big, beautiful bill,” while the Freedom Caucus endorsed a two-bill strategy — but also on the question of how ambitious any spending cuts should be.
“I’m obviously going there to hear what the president has to say. I think I’ll be advocating for a two-step reconciliation process that has actual deficit reductions in it and spending cuts,” said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member who will be at the meeting.
Another point of tension could center on Trump’s desire to raise the debt ceiling. Trump made a last-minute demand for a debt limit increase as a part of a short-term government funding bill in December, wanting to avoid Democrats using it as a leverage point later this year, but many Republicans balked at raising the debt limit without significant spending cuts.
In an internal handshake compromise, Republicans struck an agreement to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for $2.5 trillion in net cuts to spending as part of the reconciliation package — which will bypass the threat of Democrats using the debt limit to try to secure concessions from Trump. But realizing those cuts could be tricky.
A number of Freedom Caucus members have also called for the bill to be deficit-neutral, or to reduce the deficit.
Crane said his desire for a two-pronged approach comes from both a desire to move on Trump’s agenda quickly and to ensure the most cuts possible.
“I think we can get wins earlier if we do a two-step instead of a one-step,” Crane said. “If it turns into one bill, I think it’ll be a weaker bill.”
The sense that a larger bill could mean more compromises from various Republicans is not limited to the Freedom Caucus.
“We can’t all get 100 percent. I think that’s why the one bill is so appeasing to where everybody is, because everybody can get a lot of what they want. They just won’t get everything, whereas the skinnier you get it, people want all or nothing,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), a member of House GOP leadership in his role as policy chair.
The Freedom Caucus meeting is just one of many huddles with House Republicans happening at Mar-a-Lago this weekend.
Trump is also set to meet with a number of lawmakers whose main concern in the reconciliation bill is increasing the state and local tax deduction cap, which was implemented in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump signed in 2017.
Other committee chairs and caucus leaders are also going to Mar-a-Lago to air their preferences and concerns.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the meetings were Trump’s idea.
“It was his idea to bring in small groups of House Republicans to come together and just have fellowship together and talk about the issues and talk about the vision that we have for the year ahead of us,” Johnson said Thursday.
“The president would like to host every single House Republican. In fact, that’s what he told me. The problem is he’s limited by the calendar,” Johnson said. “But I think at some point over the next few weeks, he will have visited with all House Republicans. That’s his goal.”
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), another Freedom Caucus member, echoed the concerns about the timeline for the bills.
“The issue is, by the time you put everything in one bill, the time, the horizon to get it done is going to be much more complicated. And so, if you’re wanting to move something quickly, break it into two smaller pieces,” Ogles said.
But he is also not expecting Republicans to wave a magic wand to fix the nation’s fiscal problems.
“We didn’t get to $36 trillion overnight. We’re not going to fix it overnight,” Ogles said.
Mychael Schnell contributed.
