'Train wreck': Senate Republicans hope to avoid collapse of Trump’s 'big, beautiful bill'

08 May

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) on February 11, 2025 (Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock.com)

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) was hoping to get President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" passed in Congress and onto the president's Oval Office desk for signature by Memorial Day, which is Monday, which is Monday, May 26. But that goal looks increasingly unrealistic, as GOP lawmakers have plenty of disagreements on what the megabill — a combination of Trump's legislative priorities — should ultimately look like.

Within Johnson's small majority, Republicans are fighting over Medicaid. Some budget hawks and Tea Party activists in the House Freedom Caucus favor slashing the Medicaid budget, but a group of Republicans in swing districts are saying that Medicaid cuts are off the table for them. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have their own ideas on the "big, beautiful bill."

The Hill's Alexander Bolton, in an article published on May 8, describes efforts by Senate Republicans to keep budget negotiations on track despite all the GOP infighting.

"Republicans are looking to regroup on President Trump's agenda, which one GOP lawmaker says is becoming a 'trainwreck,'" Bolton reports. "Senate Republicans met at the Library of Congress Wednesday, (May 7) to plot a path forward on the stalled budget reconciliation bill, amid growing tensions between conservatives, who want to make deep cuts to government spending, and moderates, who worry about the impact on Medicaid and other federal benefits."

Bolton notes that with Johnson's Memorial Day goal collapsing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to July 4 as the goal — only now, it looks like negotiations may "slip past" that day as well.

A GOP senator, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told The Hill, "We are keeping very close tabs on it. Sooner or later, we have to pass the same thing and I'm worried that this is potentially a train wreck. We can't really get on the same page,"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told The Hill that Republicans "had a really good, I thought, very constructive conversation on May 7."

Meanwhile, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) is echoing Thune's warning that the megabill can't be all things to all people.

Cramer told The Hill, "Part of the problem.… is that this great big, beautiful bill is very, very complicated. We should have had our bill, extending the (2017) Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, border security and defense increases done. It should be law right now. There’s some frustration that we’re doing the big, beautiful bill thing and that’s probably getting away a little bit. It's too much, it might be too much."

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

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