{"id":20528,"date":"2026-03-25T12:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T12:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-to-bring-headaches-or-harmony-to-the-hill\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T12:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T12:01:37","slug":"capitol-agenda-trump-to-bring-headaches-or-harmony-to-the-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-to-bring-headaches-or-harmony-to-the-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Trump to bring headaches or harmony to Blue Light News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump has a big speaking engagement Wednesday night \u2014 and there\u2019s no telling whether he\u2019ll help or hurt the GOP\u2019s Capitol Hill agenda.<\/p>\n

The president is slated to address House Republicans at the NRCC\u2019s annual dinner \u2014 the day after Democrats flipped a Florida statehouse seat that includes his home at Mar-a-Lago<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last time Trump addressed the GOP conference, earlier this month in Florida, he sparked a slew of headaches<\/u><\/a> for his party by insisting on passage of a partisan elections bill that has little chance of becoming law.<\/p>\n

This time could be no different. Trump has so far hardly delivered a ringing public endorsement of a potential deal to end the DHS shutdown he reportedly signed off on, and which congressional Republican leaders need him to back if it has a chance of passing in the coming days. He also has yet to intervene in a standoff between the two chambers over a housing affordability package Republicans want to use as a centerpiece of their midterm messaging.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we\u2019ll be listening for:<\/p>\n

\u2014 DHS deal or no deal?:\u00a0<\/b>Trump could make or break a potential agreement to end the DHS shutdown, which got a cool reception<\/a> Tuesday on Capitol Hill across the board even ahead of Democrats\u2019 expected counteroffer Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Part of the proposal Republicans brokered with the White House includes attempts to morph sections of the SAVE America Act into a party-line budget reconciliation bill. But many conservatives see that a cop out from having to pass the full GOP elections overhaul bill, which does not currently have the votes to overcome the Senate filibuster. The House Freedom Caucus called it \u201cgaslighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans are also getting a reality check on whether pursuing another reconciliation effort<\/a> is even feasible. While Republicans are vowing to plow ahead, many predict the treacherous process will ultimately fail.<\/p>\n

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Budget Committee member who chairs the Republican Steering Committee, predicted it would be \u201cvery difficult\u201d to get the votes for reconciliation and compared it to a \u201cpipe dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Housing stalemate:<\/b> For weeks, Republicans have wanted the president to help resolve the impasse between the House and Senate over their competing housing proposals.<\/p>\n

The stalemate doesn\u2019t appear close to resolution, especially if Trump continues to stay out of the fight. House Republicans on Tuesday shot down<\/u><\/a> one idea the Senate floated to get the House to accept its legislation. It would have attached a slate of community bank deregulatory bills to a separate cryptocurrency package.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo our good stuff for their bad stuff \u2014 not sure I buy that,\u201d said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), who serves as vice chair of House Financial Services.<\/p>\n

Despite Trump insisting earlier that Republicans don\u2019t need to show they\u2019re committed to lowering costs of everyday goods and services to win elections in November, plenty of GOP lawmakers worry about the political price of failing to enact a unified vision for making housing more affordable.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 No polymarket for politicians?:<\/b> Reps. Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.) and Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) will introduce bipartisan legislation Wednesday morning to prohibit members of Congress, the president, the vice president and others in the executive branch from trading in certain prediction markets, according to bill text shared exclusively with Blue Light News<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Preventing Real-time Exploitation and Deceptive Insider Congressional Trading Act, or PREDICT Act, would also extend to dependents and spouses of lawmakers, senior congressional staff, political appointees and senior executive branch employees, including special government employees.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Bipartisan energy in tax policy: <\/b>The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up five bills with cross-party appeal Wednesday morning as Hill taxwriters consider what policies might be included in a year-end bipartisan tax package. Among the items on a docket is a measure that would allow taxpayers to temporarily write off disaster-related losses without itemizing their deductions.<\/p>\n

Katherine Tully-McManus, Jennifer Scholtes, Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Jasper Goodman and Bernie Becker contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has a big speaking engagement Wednesday night \u2014 and there\u2019s no telling whether he\u2019ll help or hurt the GOP\u2019s Capitol Hill agenda. The president is slated to address House Republicans at the NRCC\u2019s annual dinner \u2014 the day after Democrats flipped a Florida statehouse seat that includes his home at Mar-a-Lago. The last […]<\/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-20528","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\/20528","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=20528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}