Trump’s Second Week in Office Tests His Influence Over Congress

Trump’s Second Week in Office Tests His Influence Over Congress

President Donald Trump, fresh off a slew of executive orders made at the point of a Sharpie, turns this week to wooing, cajoling and strong-arming members of the legislative branch to get behind his agenda and cabinet picks.

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(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump, fresh off a slew of executive orders made at the point of a Sharpie, turns this week to wooing, cajoling and strong-arming members of the legislative branch to get behind his agenda and cabinet picks.

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Many of those plans rely on the support of the majority Republicans in Congress, who face narrow margins in both chambers. A few members in the House and Senate have shown an inclination to vote against — or at least complain about —  the most extreme of Trump’s actions. Trump can’t afford for more than a handful to oppose him. 

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Trump capped his first official weekend back in the White House by imposing punitive tariffs and sanctions on Colombia after its leader refused to allow two military planes of migrants to land on its soil. The action underscored Trump’s contention that his vows to restrict illegal migration was just as responsible for his return to the White House as his promises to boost the economy.

Facing him this week are talks to shape his tax and immigration bills and getting more cabinet nominees confirmed in the Senate.

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On Monday, he will meet with House Republicans in Florida to figure out the size and scope of his first big legislative actions: Restoring and broadening the 2017 tax cuts, cracking down on immigration, or both in one bill.

“In the coming weeks, I’ll be working with Congress to get a bill on my desk that cuts taxes for workers, families, small businesses, and very importantly, keeps my promise,” Trump told supporters on Saturday in Las Vegas.

Trump has voiced his preference for a single bill under a process called reconciliation, which allows the bill to pass with a simple majority, meaning no Democratic votes are needed. That bill would include tax cuts, money for border security and energy reform. 

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But Senate Republican leader John Thune and Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller have pushed lawmakers to first pursue a border security bill to deliver Trump an early win before pivoting to the more complex tax and spending bills.

Administration officials were already working to persuade Congress to appropriate more money to arrest and deport immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“What price is national security?” border czar Tom Homan said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “I’m being realistic. We’re going to do what we can with the money we have. We don’t have the money to remove all these people.”

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The slim majority also means that any small proposal may complicate the passage of a tax bill before the deadline. If Republicans fail to broker a deal before the end of the year, households and privately held businesses will see their tax bills rise.

Extending expiring tax cuts has a political cost — taxes will increase if the bill isn’t passed before year’s end — but will also carry a $4.6 trillion cost. On top of that, Trump has floated a number of expensive proposals that include raising the cap on SALT deductions, lowering the corporate rate, ending taxes on Social Security benefits, and exempting overtime pay from taxation. All of that may give some GOP members pause.

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Getting Cabinet Confirmed 

At the same time, Trump will need to keep senators in line for confirmation hearings this week for some of his more controversial nominees, including former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, as well as Kash Patel, a conspiracy theorist tapped to run the FBI. Those three and less divisive nominees will have their committee hearings this week. Treasury Secretary-designate Scott Bessent will get a full Senate vote on Monday, and is likely to easily win his post.

Yet some of Trump’s executive actions have given senators possible bargaining chips. His late-night, mass firing of at least a dozen inspectors general without the legally required 30 days’ congressional notification irked Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, who said in a statement Saturday that he’d like an explanation from the president.

Last week, three Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell voted against confirming Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, making the vote a 50-50 tie that Vice President JD Vance had to break. Kennedy Gabbard and Patel may face similarly narrow confirmations or even be rejected outright.

Shortly after the Hegseth vote, Trump told reporters “winning is all that matters.”

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