{"id":19169,"date":"2026-02-20T09:46:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-are-ignoring-trump-and-holding-out-hope-for-a-second-megabill\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:46:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:46:57","slug":"republicans-are-ignoring-trump-and-holding-out-hope-for-a-second-megabill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-are-ignoring-trump-and-holding-out-hope-for-a-second-megabill\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans are ignoring Trump and holding out hope for a second megabill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump sent a clear message to congressional Republicans this month that there\u2019s no need to pass another party-line megabill this year. Many, however, aren\u2019t ready to give up yet.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments in a Fox Business Network interview<\/a> earlier this month appeared to finally settle a long-running GOP debate over whether to pursue a follow-up to the \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d enacted in July, saying \u201cwe\u2019ve gotten everything passed that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some lawmakers are insisting that the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process offers an unmissable opportunity<\/a> for Republicans to enact major conservative policy changes ahead of the midterm elections \u2014 and that there is still a window to get it done.<\/p>\n

Those Republicans are largely brushing off Trump\u2019s comments, refusing to take them as a death knell for their efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day he\u2019s okay with it, and the next day he\u2019s not,\u201d said Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> (R-La.), who is one of the loudest evangelists for passing another party-line bill before the midterms, arguing Republicans \u201chaven\u2019t done a damn thing\u201d since last year\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n

Those attitudes threaten to extend the will-they-or-won\u2019t-they discussion for potentially several more months as some factions keep pressure on GOP leaders to keep hope alive.<\/p>\n

The influential Republican Study Committee, which includes scores of House conservatives, has been holding listening sessions since last August for what could go into “Reconciliation 2.0.\u201d It put out a framework in January<\/a> outlining how such a bill could fulfill an ambitious housing, health care and energy agenda. The group is not yet abandoning the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s always a chance until there’s not,\u201d said Rep. Kevin Hern<\/a> (R-Okla.), a former RSC chair and member of House GOP leadership.<\/p>\n

Rep. August Pfluger<\/a> (R-Texas), the RSC’s current chair, said in a statement that a second reconciliation bill would be \u201cthe perfect vehicle\u201d to unite Republicans behind \u201cTrump\u2019s America First agenda in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our moment, and we intend to make the most of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But to many senior Republicans that amounts to false hope \u2014 and a distraction from other matters on the congressional agenda in the coming months. Hopes abound for progress on bipartisan housing, permitting and transportation bills.<\/p>\n

It was a particularly grueling process to get the first megabill through both chambers last year \u2014 and leaders had $5 trillion worth of tax cuts to dangle in front of recalcitrant members to help push it along.<\/p>\n

House Republicans barely passed the bill<\/a> on party lines in July, and their margin has only decreased since: They can currently afford no more than one defection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love a second reconciliation bill, but I can count votes,\u201d Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith<\/a> (R-Mo.) said in an interview. \u201cAnd we do not have the votes for a second reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> and other House GOP leaders insist they haven\u2019t ruled out doing a second reconciliation bill and say it’s still an active discussion, even as some senior House Republicans and GOP leadership aides privately doubt they will ever have the votes to move forward.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> also hasn\u2019t dismissed another bill \u2014 but privately there\u2019s a hefty dose of skepticism among senators and aides that there\u2019s much of an appetite for another big party-line heave.<\/p>\n

Asked about Trump\u2019s latest comments, Thune acknowledged in an interview that there\u2019s interest among some members. But he added that Republicans have to be \u201crealistic\u201d about the prospects of assembling a proposal that can garner 51 GOP votes and withstand a free-for-all of politically tricky changes from Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to have a reason to do it,\u201d Thune added.<\/p>\n

To get another bill across the finish line during a midterm year, Republicans would likely need Trump to articulate what precisely he wants in a bill and then for the president to spend weeks, and potentially months, trying to help round up the votes.<\/p>\n

But Trump has expressed skepticism about reconciliation, further raising the likelihood that the prospects of another bill are DOA. In addition to his recent comments, he kvetched about how little can actually get done in a reconciliation bill during a meeting with Senate Republicans last fall, instead urging Republicans to break the filibuster \u2014 a nonstarter for a significant swath of the conference.<\/p>\n

Trump rekindled that push Thursday, telling senators in a Truth Social post<\/a> to pass a GOP elections bill by insisting on a \u201ctalking filibuster\u201d that would theoretically force Democrats to hold the floor indefinitely. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill, but many Republicans aren\u2019t interested in skirting the chamber\u2019s 60-vote supermajority requirement for most legislation.<\/p>\n

The intraparty division is expected to come to a head next month at the House Republican retreat in south Florida, where a second reconciliation bill will be a topic of conversation. A previous closed-door meeting<\/a> of GOP lawmakers in December grew heated, with vulnerable Rep. Mike Lawler<\/a> (R-N.Y.) saying it would \u201cnever\u201d happen.<\/p>\n

Reconciliation got a brief mention during a Senate GOP retreat earlier this month, but most of the focus was on a slate of bipartisan bills that could come up this year, as well as the need to promote last year\u2019s megabill, according to attendees who were granted anonymity to describe the closed-door event.<\/p>\n

But some Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee \u2014 including Chair Lindsey Graham<\/a> (R-S.C.) \u2014 are pushing for more. Graham has told his members that he plans to move forward with a budget resolution that would tee up a second reconciliation bill aimed at beefing up military and border spending, addressing health care costs and targeting fraud in social services.<\/p>\n

But according to his committee members, Graham hasn\u2019t given a strict timeline for when he\u2019ll start moving, and there\u2019s skepticism that it will amount to much without GOP leaders\u2019 involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you move forward without the majority leader\u2019s okay,\u201d Kennedy said in an interview. \u201cSenator Thune wants us to only work on bipartisan bills. I love Senator Thune like a taco, but he needs to back off the crank if he believes that. There aren\u2019t going to be any bipartisan bills \u2014 we\u2019re right in the middle of the midterm election. Our one shot to get something is reconciliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the other challenges is litigating what exactly would go into a second reconciliation bill.<\/p>\n

Senate conservatives have floated taking another crack at healthcare, but that would risk exposing deep GOP divisions just months before the midterms. Many of the party\u2019s most unifying health care proposals were omitted from last year\u2019s megabill because of the Senate\u2019s strict rules governing reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Some senior House Republicans have discussed attempting to codify Trump\u2019s tariffs in another party-line bill. But that long-shot effort is now effectively dead after six Republicans voted this month to reject Trump\u2019s levies on Canadian imports \u2014 with more such tariff votes to come.<\/p>\n

Asked about the possibility of codifying tariffs in a party-line package, Smith reiterated in an interview, \u201cThere’s not going to be a second reconciliation bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump sent a clear message to congressional Republicans this month that there\u2019s no need to pass another party-line megabill this year. Many, however, aren\u2019t ready to give up yet. Trump\u2019s comments in a Fox Business Network interview earlier this month appeared to finally settle a long-running GOP debate over whether to pursue a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}