By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Senate Republicans spent nearly two hours in a closed-door meeting about his upcoming agenda on Wednesday, but emerged with no clear path for enacting his plan to cut taxes, boost fossil fuel production and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Trump, in his first visit to the U.S. Capitol since his supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021, held a wide-ranging discussion that touched on his Cabinet nominees, the Panama Canal, oil drilling in Alaska as well as his legislative agenda.
With only narrow majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, Republicans in the two chambers have clashed over whether to enact Trump's tax, border, energy and military priorities in one piece of legislation or two.
Senate Republicans want to break Trump's agenda into two bills, allowing them to notch a quick success on border and energy policy before turning to the thornier matter of taxes. House Republicans warn that their narrow margin of control runs the risk of failing to pass a second bill to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year.
"There's a lot of talk about two, and there's a lot of talk about one. But it doesn't matter. The end result is the same. We're going to get something done," Trump told reporters after the meeting.
The absence of clarity encouraged some Senate Republicans to envision a legislative "horse race" against the House.
"We all want to get all of it done. And if we can advance into two bills, and it looks like that's moving better, that's a horse race," Senator John Hoeven told reporters.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that the Senate stands ready to begin moving forward with its own legislation but wants to give House Republicans time to foster unity within their sometimes fractious ranks.
"It's an ongoing conversation. I'll put it that way," Thune said.
On Friday, the president-elect is due to begin three days of meetings with House Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Legislative Maneuver
Republicans will also have to grapple with how to offset the effects of fresh tax cuts on the nation's growing $36 trillion debt.
In a possible sign of things to come, Trump had to intervene in the House last week when Speaker Mike Johnson initially fell short of the votes needed for reelection to his top post. After nearly two hours of negotiations, a call from Trump helped sway two hardline Republican opponents to change their positions and support Johnson.
"President Trump gets MVP status for solving the speaker vote. And we're going to need him to play MVP on getting these bills done. Just common sense," Senator Thom Tillis told reporters before Wednesday's meeting.
Republicans intend to pass Trump's agenda by using a complex legislative maneuver that would allow them to bypass Senate Democratic opposition. Republicans' 53-47 majority in the Senate is too narrow to otherwise overcome the chamber's 60-vote filibuster for most legislation.
In the House, a 219-seat majority is expected to dwindle to 217-215 after Trump takes office in less than two weeks. Two House Republicans are poised to leave Congress and join his administration.
Trump was expected to meet on Friday with members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus. Lawmakers and aides said he would also meet with committee chairs on Saturday and with other House Republicans on Sunday.
U.S. Representative Ralph Norman, a Freedom Caucus member and one of the two Republican holdouts who Trump persuaded to support Johnson last week, said he intends to ask Trump to use his leverage to back aggressive spending reductions that would help compensate for a higher federal debt ceiling.
U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw, who will meet with Trump on Sunday, sees the discussions as a starting gun for the president-elect’s second-term engagement with Capitol Hill.
"Trump has a history of being the most involved president with members of Congress," Crenshaw said. "And so this is just the beginning of it."
Some Republicans cautioned that Trump could overplay his hand if he takes too strong a role in legislative negotiations.
"We're independent. I mean, we're a co-equal branch of government. Sometimes we forget that the president doesn't rule over the Senate and the House. I think that was the mistake that he learned the first time," said U.S. Representative Kevin Hern, who chairs the Republican Policy Committee in the House.
Hern said he would be among the lawmakers who meet with Trump on Sunday.