'Warning sign for Trump': Reporter identifies challenges ahead for GOP’s 'slimming' majority

After the government shutdown was averted on Friday as the Senate passed a massive bipartisan spending bill, The Hill congressional reporter Michael Schnell explained the "far more challenging" Republican lawmakers are expected to have over the next two years ahead of midterm elections.

The shutdown aversion seemed "like a bit of an early lesson for Donald Trump on the very serious challenges of governing and legislating in the current political climate," CNN's Amara Walker noted on Sunday morning, speaking with Schnell.

"It was absolutely a warning, and a foreshadowing of likely what's going to come in the next two years," Schnell replied. "But the only difference is, is the next two years are going to be far more challenging than this debacle was. And that's because the House Republican majority is slimming, even more so throughout the 118th Congress. We saw House Republicans have their troubles in passing various pieces of legislation. That was when they had a roughly four vote margin."

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The congressional expert continued, "Now, as they head into the 100 days, they are going to have at one point just a zero vote margin. No room for error. The breakdown in the House is going to be 217 to 215. That's because former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is not taking the oath of office. and Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) are both going to the administration. so when you have a 217 to 215 breakdown, that means that if any one republican breaks ranks and votes with democrats, the vote is 216 to 216. and in the House a tie fails. That would be the entire ballgame."

"And as we've seen again throughout the 118th Congress, in this very ideologically diverse House Republican conference, we oftentimes see more than one Republican break ranks and go to the other side," Schnell emphasized. "So this whirlwind, this shutdown showdown that we saw play out over the first few weeks is absolutely a warning sign for Donald Trump that even though he has a trifecta in Washington, governing is still going to be difficult."

She continued, "A: When you have to deal with that 60 vote threshold in the senate and work with democrats. B: When you have such a slim majority in the House, and C: Even when you're working under reconciliation, which is that fast track process that allows just a majority vote in the Senate, you're still going to have to deal with these very narrow margins, and have near unanimity for Republicans, which we've seen is difficult for them."

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