'Knows nothing': Expert reveals how Trump is about to make Mike Johnson’s life even harder

07 January

President-elect Donald Trump is hoping that after he returns to the White House, "one powerful bill" in Congress will address a variety of his legislative priorities — from taxes to immigration and the U.S./Mexico border.

But political scientist and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar Norman Ornstein is skeptical about the possibility of a giant megabill being able to pass in both branches of Congress and making its way to his desk for signature.

When Ornstein appeared on The New Republic's podcast in early January, host Greg Sargent noted that Senate Republicans "don't want to do this in one bill," unlike House Republicans.

The 76-year-old Ornstein told Sargent, "It's not going to play out well, we know that. There are going to be a lot of bumps along the way. We know that, first, Donald Trump knows nothing about the legislative process and very little about the executive process. It's whoever whispers in his ear last that has him issuing demands that practically speaking can't be met. But what we also know is that with a razor-thin margin in the House and with a Senate that often will have different ideas, the House and Senate Republicans are going to be at odds with each other — and Donald Trump will only make that worse."

Trump, Ornstein argued, is "asking for the impossible" by hoping to get so much legislation passed in a hurry via the process known as "budget reconciliation."

"Trump wants to continue all of those tax cuts, which would mean another $5 trillion added to the debt," Ornstein told Sargent. "He wants to do…. who knows what on the border. He wants to include his tariff proposals and theoretically, all of these spending cuts that will offset the tax cuts and lead us to a balanced budget. The problem there, to start with, is the only places where you can find big amounts of spending that you could, in theory, cut are from the defense budget or these permanent programs sometimes called entitlements: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And Medicare and Social Security are not allowed under reconciliation."

Ornstein added, "They could gut Medicaid, but a lot of Republicans are going to find out that that means cutting nursing home care. And to put all of that together in one bill, that is a dubious legality that would have to be approved by the Senate parliamentarian."

If Trump's legislative demands don't work out, Ornstein predicted, he will blame Republicans in Congress.

Ornstein told Sargent, "What we know about Trump, Greg, is that if anything goes wrong, he’s not going to accept any of the blame for it. He is going to blame the Republicans who he said disappointed him and sold his ideas short."

Listen to The New Republic's full interview with Norman Ornstein at this link or read the transcript here.

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