Roundup: Congress Works On Budget; Cabinet Meets; Good TV
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What is the main focus of Congress regarding the budget?
I'm Barbara Sprent.
I cover Congress.
And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
And it's time for the weekly roundup. And we're going to start on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are trying to figure out how to get a budget through Congress that will allow them to extend President Trump's 2017 tax cuts, most of which will expire at the end of the year. Barbara, this is going to be a long journey for Republicans. But look, Speaker Mike Johnson, he's had a lot of defeats on the floor. He enjoyed a rare unified win. How'd it go down?
How is the Republican Party handling budget challenges?
That's right. Yeah. Big win for the speaker. There were plenty of holdouts in his conference on this budget resolution, which, as we've talked about before on the podcast, is an early step in using the reconciliation process to pass a lot of what President Trump wants to see happen. Tax cuts, sending more money and resources to the southern border. On Tuesday, pretty dramatic. Johnson and House Republican leaders held the floor open for an hour or so while trying to get all of the votes needed to pass this resolution. At one point, it looked like they weren't going to quite make it. They sent members home for the night. But wait, but wait. They quickly changed course, ordered the House back in session and voted on the proposal right away.
You know, essentially, some of the GOP members who had said that they would not support it changed their minds and ended up supporting it.
One thing that's really interesting to me about this is this time around, Trump seems much more involved in in the process here. And there was this great anecdote that he could be heard yelling over the phone in the Republican cloakroom, getting lawmakers in line to vote for the bill. That tells you something about how much he wants this done.
Yeah, I think there's two big things, you know, that are different between now and when Republicans used reconciliation in 2017. And one of those is exactly what you're saying, the difference of Trump himself. He was fairly content to leave a lot of the procedural elements in 2017 to Paul Ryan, who was speaker. And now it's not even, you know, a full two months into his presidency. He's already put his thumb on the scale when it comes to a lot of the decision making between the House and the Senate, talking to members, doing some whipping of support. And then, you know, the second thing that I think is different, of course, is the margin, you know, that Johnson enjoys or does not enjoy rather some of the time.
You know, in 2017, Republicans can lose, I don't know, 20 some votes. Now, you know, Johnson can afford to lose just one vote. That's that's pretty tight. Yeah.
But Domenico, I think – look, I think when Americans think about Washington right now, Republican unified control of government, Trump exerting a lot of power in the White House, Republicans have both the House and Senate. Why should it be that hard? But it's going to be pretty hard.
Yeah, it's not that easy when you have such a small majority in the House and you have varying factions within the Republican Party. They have some moderates and you also have some pretty hardline people on the right who don't want to see – much increased spending at all.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main focus of Congress regarding the budget?
1:09–1:36
2
How is the Republican Party handling budget challenges?
1:36–5:11
3
Why is Medicaid a contentious issue in the budget?
5:11
4
What are the implications of Trump's involvement in the budget process?
1:57–7:17
5
How might a government shutdown be avoided?
7:17–9:43
6
What to expect from President Trump's address to Congress?
9:43–11:14
7
Who is delivering the Democratic response and why?
11:14–14:16
8
What role does Elon Musk play in the Trump administration?
14:16–22:50