'Split it up': These GOP senators believe only 'multiple steps' can save Trump’s 'stalled bill'

19 May 2025

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) in Kyiv, Ukraine on September 5, 2019 (Photowalking/Shutterstock.com)

President Donald Trump is still pushing for Congress to pass a "big, beautiful bill" that will combine his legislative priorities, but it remains to be seen when and how that will come about.

House Republicans are fighting over the specifics, with some of them calling for steep Medicaid cuts while others are adamantly saying Medicaid cuts are a deal breaker. And Republicans in the U.S. Senate don't necessarily have the same ideas on the bill as their House counterparts.

In article published on May 19, The Hill's Alexander Bolton takes a look at Senate Republicans who believe that the easiest thing to do is forget the megabill approach and focus on Trump's legislative priorities through a series of smaller bills.

"Senate Republicans say the House-drafted bill to enact President Trump's legislative agenda has 'problems' and are taking a second look at breaking it up into smaller pieces in hopes of getting the president's less controversial priorities enacted into law before the fall," Bolton reports. "Even if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) manages to squeak Trump's agenda through the House, it faces major obstacles in the Senate, where moderate Republicans say they oppose proposed cuts to Medicaid and fiscal conservatives say it doesn't go nearly far enough in cutting the deficit…. Several Republican senators say the best way to jump-start the stalled bill would be to break it up into two or three pieces and pass the elements of Trump's agenda that have the most support in Congress first."

Bolton adds, "That's the strategy Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) first proposed to his colleagues in December."

A GOP senator, interviewed on condition of anonymity, agrees with that approach.

The senator told The Hill, "If the bill continues to have problems over here, we could split it up. Thune was smart to say from the beginning that there should be two packages…. The debate over the tax and spending elements are likely to drag through the summer."

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) is also a proponent of passing more than one bill rather than trying to get a giant megabill passed.

Johnson told The Hill, "That's why you do multiple steps. You figure out the things you agree on, leave the hard stuff for last. The problem with bundling all of that is what you’re seeing right now."

According to Johnson, the reconciliation bill being considered in the House will get "no" votes from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Florida).

Johnson told The Hill, "Talk to Mike Lee and Rick Scott. It's not going to pass the Senate. It won’t. So it would be nice if they acknowledge that fact and go, 'Let's regroup'….. When I talk about a multiple-step process, they always say, 'That ship has sailed.' I say, 'Well, bring it back to port.'"

Read Alexander Bolton's full article for The Hill at this link.

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