By Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
While the Democratic Party searches for its black box buried under an election crash site, Senate and House Republicans are celebrating with President-elect Trump and plotting rapid action to deliver on a historically conservative agenda.
Voters handed them a mandate, Trump says, and his party intends to deliver.
On Wednesday, President Biden will host Trump at the White House as part of the handoff between two men who have scant respect for one another. Each has run for president three times. One, who will be 82 in nine days, is exiting a lifetime in politics on Jan. 20 and could see his legacy initiatives reversed in brisk succession next year by Republicans who have the power.
Trump, 78, returns to the White House as a lame duck bolstered by GOP lawmakers who want to use their majorities to bury Democrats and their progressive ideas.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been working with Senate Republicans and Trump for months on bills they can enact with speed to show supporters they mean business. The list includes a basket of new and extended tax cuts and repeal of climate and energy provisions in the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act.
The Senate will be under GOP control in January, and while there are still 18 House races to be called, Republicans feel confident they have enlarged their narrow House control.
“When we retake control of government, we’re going to roll back the Green New Deal regulations and put America back in a place of American energy dominance,” Johnson promised.
Other priorities the GOP has in mind next year: Funding for border security, including Trump’s unfinished wall, and conservative changes to schools and universities. “We can reform our education system by maximizing school choice for parents and holding woke university administrators accountable,” according to the Speaker.
Trump campaigned to stop migrants from entering the U.S. and deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who are living and working in the country. The details of how the administration would round up and send millions of migrants to other nations remains unclear, especially if they have children born in the U.S.
“Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Trump adviser Stephen Miller said a year ago. Former senior Trump officials helped write Project 2025, a detailed plan to overhaul federal agencies that includes more than 175 immigration actions. Trump as a candidate distanced himself from its 900 pages.
On Sunday, Trump announced his incoming deportation “border czar,” Tom Homan, who told Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures,” “It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it,” adding, “When we go out there, we’re going to know who we’re looking for. We most likely know where they’re going to be, and it’s going to be done in a humane manner.”
The Hill’s Alexander Bolton points to a key player who has broad power under budget reconciliation rules to determine what GOP lawmakers can pass quickly with a simple majority vote. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough has a record of ruling against adding immigration changes to budget reconciliation. That could trigger calls that she be replaced.
This week, Republican senators will vote privately for a colleague to lead their conference next year. The leadership contest has turned into a sharp-elbows race.
The endorsements have ricocheted into public view among candidates Sens. John Thune (S.D.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Rick Scott (Florida). The question is whether Trump will stay out of the leadership race, as Thune has recommended.
Scott, who touts his close ties with the president-elect, is endorsed by fellow Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Sens. Bill Hagerty (Tenn.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump ally (Fox News).
As GOP policy priorities come into sharper focus for the new year, attention turns to the anticipated chairs of key Senate committees who will serve as sherpas for Trump’s long list of campaign promises.
To enact tax code changes, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo is expected to take the lead as anticipated chair of the Senate Finance Committee next year (Law360 and Punchbowl News). GOP health policy initiatives will be a shared load in the Senate as Trump and conservatives take aim at Medicare and Medicaid and vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a popular law among voters after 14 years. The top Republican who may chair the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee is Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician.
Cornyn is now the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security and may take the reins as a border state leader next year.
- The Hill: Trump’s GOP skeptics in Congress face a lonely path.
- The Hill: Sen. JD Vance of Ohio will give up his seat and be replaced when he’s sworn in as vice president in January. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) will fill that seat by appointment and the jockeying has begun. Jane Timken, the former Ohio GOP chair, is widely believed to be among leading early contenders.