Trump, Senate GOP budget leaders huddle at White House on reconciliation bill

President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Budget Committee Republicans are meeting at the White House on Wednesday morning as discussions on how to extend the 2017 tax cuts continue and a key budget process to advance Trump’s agenda hangs in the balance. 

Notably, the meeting is taking place ahead of a Trump event in the Rose Garden, during which the president will discuss his new tariffs.

The Wednesday White House meeting is meant to be less of a debate on how to proceed and more of a final check-in to make sure all parties are on the same page, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

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Trump and Senate Republicans’ discussion is just the latest of several meetings on both the House and Senate sides, hammering out details on how to maneuver a House-passed budget reconciliation bill through the upper chamber. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was spotted leaving at least one of the congressional meetings on Wednesday and has been a fixture on Capitol Hill amid the reconciliation debate. 

Initially, there was stark disagreement between GOP leaders in the House and Senate over how to organize a reconciliation bill, which is a key tool for the Trump administration and Republican majorities, because it lowers the vote threshold in the Senate, bypassing the legislative filibuster. 

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Senate Republicans largely preferred splitting the priorities of the Trump administration into two reconciliation bills, the first of which would address the southern border’s urgent needs and a later bill would extend Trump’s hallmark 2017 tax cuts. 

But House Republicans, who have less space for dissent with their slim majority, made it clear they would only accept one reconciliation bill that included border funding and tax cut extensions. 

The House and Senate both passed separate resolutions, but Trump has voiced his support for one bill on multiple occasions and Senate Republicans themselves described their resolution as a backup plan to the House’s. 

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Now, the Senate is charged with taking up the House’s bill, including border and tax cuts, in order to complete the budget reconciliation process for Trump. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News he would be at the 11 a.m. meeting. He said he planned to bring up the debt limit, which will need to be extended soon. In particular, he wants to discuss raising the debt limit in the budget reconciliation resolution. 

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According to the Republican, Trump hasn’t been highly communicative to Republicans about his position on the debt limit’s inclusion in this particular bill. 

But Kennedy believes they should raise the debt limit via reconciliation to ensure Republicans don’t need to negotiate with Democrats to avert default down the line.