House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that he anticipates passing one “big, beautiful bill” by Memorial Day that would cover the majority of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.
Johnson stated in an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that Republicans would try to incorporate as many policy issues as they could into a large reconciliation measure in order to avoid the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the majority of legislation in the Senate.
For reconciliation legislation to be passed in the upper house, 50 votes, or a simple majority, are required.
“We’re 15 days out from the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump for his second term. And we want to make sure that we’re jump-starting the agenda now over the next two weeks, so that he’s prepared and ready on day one. We have a lot to do, as you know. And we have been putting all the plays together and figuring out the sequence of how we’re going to run those plays. And we’re really excited about it,” Johnson said.
“At the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, one big, beautiful bill. And there’s a lot of merit to that, because we can put it all together, one big up-or-down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it. And it’ll give us a little bit more time to negotiate that and get it right,” Johnson added.
Asked for a “realistic timeline” on getting the large bill through to the president’s desk, Johnson said that would happen “certainly by May, yes.”
Johnson said Republicans are “targeting a vote in the House maybe in the first week of April,” adding that the vote may come “maybe as soon as April 3, and then move it over to the Senate.”
“That would put that bill on the president’s desk for signature by the end of April. That would be fantastic,” Johnson said. “And, in a worst-case scenario, Memorial Day.”
Johnson expressed his belief that combining several legislative issues into a single bill would lessen the possibility of losing members’ support.
He also spoke about the president-elect’s agenda and how they plan on getting it done.
“We’re ready,” Johnson said. “Look, I think we’re going to get this done. Everybody here in the House Republican Conference understands the necessity of the moment, the urgency of the hour. They know we don’t have time for games and palace intrigue. We’ve got a lot of very important work to do. We have to deliver on the America First agenda.
“We got a mandate in the election. President Trump got 77 million votes and House Republicans almost 75 million. That was a record for us. And that’s a message that we’ve got to stick together. And if we stay unified, no matter how small our margin — and it will be probably the smallest in U.S. history for a short period — we’ve got to get this done, and I think we will,” he said.
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