Senate GOP plows forward with budget plan despite Trump preference for House version

Senate Republicans say they’re moving forward with their plan to tackle President Trump’s priorities despite Trump endorsing the House's competing strategy.

Emerging from a meeting Wednesday with Vice President Vance, Republicans said the upper chamber will press on with a budget resolution that would unlock the process they hope to use to pass large portions of Trump's agenda without Democratic support.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Wednesday that Trump likes “optionality” and that the Senate would press on with its plan, which he touted addresses “the president’s top priority, which is securing the border, implementing and putting in place his immigration policies, rebuilding our military and creating energy dominance for this country.”

“The House, as you know, is working on a different budget resolution, and we certainly wish them all the success in moving it. We will work closely with them. More power to them,” he said, noting the House is working on getting “the tax piece of this done.”

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters the plan is for the upper chamber to move forward “tomorrow with a vote-a-rama,” a marathon voting session that is a key next step for the Senate to move its budget plan forward.

“I'm pulling for the House to pull it together and get one big, beautiful bill, but it's got to be consistent with President Trump's tax agenda,” he told reporters, “and right now, you know, the tax agenda is to make the tax cuts permanent. And the House bill doesn't do that.”

“That would be a problem in the Senate, but I trust Speaker [Mike] Johnson to pull it together, and when he does pull together a bill that meets the priorities, I will be his biggest fan,” Graham continued.

Senators who attended the huddle with Vance said the vice president listened and took questions from members.

“I think he said that the president likes, as you heard, optionality, and that having a two-track system, even though he prefers the one bill, his message to us was to move forward, and that's what we're going to do,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told The Hill.

But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said when pressed by reporters that Vance didn’t say "exactly" that he was fine with the Senate’s two-track approach. “He did not contradict the president.”

“We keep getting told by other people, leadership and others that really he's fine with two bills,” he said, referring to Trump. “He says he wants one, but he's really fine with two. But I don't know.”

Asked if he’d vote for the budget plan, Hawley said if the “president supports it, and this has been — I have some assurance for that — I'll support it, but this just seems a little bizarre to me.”

Trump caught GOP senators off guard Wednesday when he indicated his preference on social media for the House GOP’s strategy to advance his agenda in one sweeping bill, as opposed to the two-track plan being pursued in the upper chamber.

While the president said both chambers were taking efforts to advance his priorities, he said the House plan “implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it” – which he noted is “unlike the Lindsey Graham version.”

Thune told reporters shortly after that he ”did not see” Trump’s comments coming and that he hadn't spoken to the president before his post.

The House and Senate Republicans have been racing to advance their own budget resolutions to unlock a special process known as reconciliation.

Republicans sought to make clear that the aim is the same behind both efforts: delivering wins on Trump’s legislative agenda in areas like border, tax and defense. But there’s also distinct differences in both chambers’ strategies.

The plan being pushed by the House would boost border and defense funds, but also allow for potentially trillions of dollars in spending reductions and tax cuts. The plan would also raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion as lawmakers face a ticking clock to prevent a national default this year.

The Senate plan seeks to pass a narrower bill that would prioritize increasing funds for border and defense, with sights set on hashing out a tax package later in the year.

House Republicans have pushed back on the Senate strategy, arguing a package encompassing more of Trump’s priorities would have better chances in the lower chamber. But the House GOP conference already faces serious challenges in the path forward for its budget plan amid internal divides over tax and spending.

The back-and-forth even seems to be sparking some confusion among GOP lawmakers.

“This just seems a little bizarre to me. I can’t quite figure out what we're doing,” Hawley told reporters shortly after the lunch, adding, “I just — I’m a little baffled as to what, as to what we're doing.”

Al Weaver contributed.