Scalise talks with Trump, House conservatives on 2025 agenda
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House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) has been discussing 2025 plans with former President Trump and House conservatives to tackle GOP priorities in the event the party sweeps the majority in both chambers and the White House next fall, he told Axios in an interview.
Why it matters: Scalise said he and the presumptive GOP nominee talked about using budget reconciliation — which allows the majority party to get around the need for 60 Senate votes to pass legislation — to get policy issues including tax cuts and potentially energy policy over the finish line.
What they're saying: "I met with President Trump to talk about this weeks ago, and, he's of course very interested in what we can do, especially if we're all on the same page and I think we will be," he said.
- "We all saw what success we were able to have with the tax cuts and Jobs Act in terms of helping increase wages for low and middle income families and starting small businesses and seeing our economy take off and we don't want to lose ground there," he continued
- "But there's other things too. I mean, he was very successful on getting a strong energy policy."
Behind the scenes: The Louisiana Republican huddled with the Republican Study Committee — the largest conservative caucus in Congress — on Wednesday to discuss strategy for next year.
- Scalise said that in addition potentially using budget reconciliation to address taxes and energy, reconciliation, he and the group discussed the potential to address border security and unwinding some of the regulations put in place by the Biden administration.
- "Reconciliation talk was less on content and more on strategy — Scalise wants it to be broad in topics, he wants committee chairs to "get creative, be bold" in their requests and ideas and he wants submissions by the end of June," one source in the room told Axios.
- While the bill would need to get through both chambers, Scalise said the bicameral talks haven't picked up steam quite yet, with the discussions largely remaining within the House GOP.
The big picture: GOP leaders are putting a strong emphasis on crafting an agenda for the first 100 days of the new Congress, with top lawmakers arguing it is critical ot have in place so they can hit the ground running.
- Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) also recently spoke with Trump about using budget reconciliation plans a they look to put a plan in place for 2025.
