Speaker of the House Mike Johnson touted the House Republicans’ plan to deliver on President-elect Trump’s campaign promises with a single large reconciliation bill during a “Sunday Morning Futures” interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.
Johnson, fresh off a narrow one-round victory being reelected as House speaker, outlined an aggressive plan to immediately start working to put a budget reconciliation bill on Trump’s desk within the first 100 days of his second term as president.
“We want to make sure that we’re jumpstarting the agenda now over the next two weeks so that he’s prepared and ready on Day One,” he told Bartiromo.
Johnson also signaled to Bartiromo his and Trump’s preference to pass a single large bill to deliver on the Republican agenda.
“I think at the end of the day President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say ‘one big beautiful bill,’” Johnson said.
Johnson then outlined plans to address border security, the economy, energy dominance, deregulation and dismantling the deep state in a single legislative package. He called the bill “one big up or down vote which can save the country, quite literally.”
Mike Johnson was on with Maria Bartiromo this morning discussing the reconciliation package.
President Trump wants on bill that will address:
1. Securing border
2. Money for mass deportations
3. New energy policy
4. Deregulation
5. Trump tax cuts 2.0 with no tax on tips,… pic.twitter.com/X0gTW6MKuh— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) January 5, 2025
Johnson plans to have the House version of the bill ready for the Senate to take up as early as April 3, 2025, and on President Trump’s desk no later than Memorial Day.
The speaker indicated that some of the obvious solutions for improving border security were so common sense that “we might even be able to get some Democrat votes on some of that legislation.”
He lauded reconciliation as a way to both avoid the 60-vote legislative requirement in the Senate as well as craft an agenda-setting bill which does not depend on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his Democratic colleagues’ input or support. (RELATED: Speaker Johnson Backs Out Of Event With Trump And Tucker Following Pork Barrel Backlash)
Johnson also said the bill will likely raise the debt ceiling, an issue which has divided House Republicans in recent weeks. While Trump has previously called for an elimination of the debt ceiling, Johnson indicated he supports a new plan to raise the limit.
Debt hawks and fiscal conservatives such as Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy have cautioned against raising the limit. Roy and 37 other House Republicans voted against an early version of Johnson’s Trump-backed continuing resolution in December 2024, citing their opposition to an increase in the debt limit without corresponding budget cuts.
Johnson, seemingly aware of his party’s concerns, sought to assure voters that the Republican Party was the party of fiscal responsibility and claimed that, while they would move to raise the debt limit, they would do so while simultaneously eliminating waste.
“You have to raise the debt limit on paper so that we don’t frighten the bond markets and the world’s economy,” he told Bartiromo, noting, “But we don’t intend to spend to that limit, as President Trump will clarify all the time.”
“We’re gonna the raise the ceiling, but we are going to be cutting all along the way, so we can do both of those things simultaneously,” he said.
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