Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and key committee chairs from the Senate and House will meet Tuesday in hope of reaching a breakthrough on President Trump’s stalled agenda, including border security, energy and tax reform.
Thune told reporters he is hoping the Senate will act on a budget resolution in the next three weeks that would lay the groundwork for moving a package later this year to secure the border, expand domestic oil and gas drilling, boost defense spending by at least $100 billion and extend Trump’s expiring 2017 tax cuts.
“I want to get it done this work period,” he told reporters Monday.
Tuesday’s meeting will include Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent, along with Thune and Johnson.
The Speaker has set a goal of getting that “one big, beautiful bill” to Trump’s desk by the end of April or — at the latest — by Memorial Day, but Thune has privately told Senate colleagues that ambitious timeline is unrealistic, and that getting it passed by the end of July is a more attainable target.
House Republican leaders are running out of patience with divisions among Senate Republicans over how to craft a budget resolution and released a statement Monday morning calling for the Senate to take up and immediately pass the resolution it passed Feb. 25.