Johnson says it’s ‘game time’ as House committees draft first piece of Trump agenda

By Manu Raju, Haley Talbot, Morgan Rimmer and Ted Barrett, CNN

(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said the coming days will be critical in the House as committees begin to draft the contents of President Donald Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda.

“We’ve been working on it for over a year, and now is game time,” said Johnson, who emphasized that “this next few weeks is going to be critical.”

Lawmakers, who returned to Washington from a two-week recess, are preparing for a critical period of legislating. Eleven different House committees plan to release various pieces of the larger bill before they’re cobbled together into one massive package that Johnson wants to bring to the floor before Memorial Day, an ambitious timeframe.

Johnson met with Trump at the White House on Monday afternoon, after which the speaker told reporters that the legislation will “solve a lot of problems” and provide a “turbo boost for the economy.”

But there are a number of contentious issues still unresolved, namely over $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to federal programs and a multi-trillion dollar overhaul of the US tax code.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent left a separate meeting with GOP leaders on Capitol Hill insisting that House and Senate Republicans are moving “in lockstep” on tax cuts.

“The House is moving things along quickly, and the Senate is in lockstep. We think that they are in substantial agreement, and this is going to be a win for the American people,” he declared. “Very pro-growth.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, said that while he thinks the House may pass a bill by Memorial Day, it will take longer in the Senate where special rules and other considerations need to be factored in.

The House and Senate GOP are using a process known on Capitol Hill as “budget reconciliation” to try to advance the Trump agenda since bills can’t be filibustered in the Senate under this process. That means the GOP can enact the plan without Democratic support, but it needs to adhere to the strict budget rules in the Senate.

GOP unveils funding proposed for defense programs

So far, House Republicans have promised to pump into the sweeping bill roughly $150 billion for defense programs and tens of billions more in border security measures.

The defense and homeland security provisions are considered less controversial among House Republicans, but the huge dollar for these programs underscores how central they are to the president’s agenda.

The $150 billion in defense programs includes $25 billion for Trump’s “Golden Dome” for missile defense, $34 billion in ship building and more than $20 billion in munitions purchases. The House Armed Services Committee plans to begin voting on Tuesday on this aspect of the bill.

On border security, the House Homeland Security Committee proposes $46.5 billion for new border barriers, $5 billion for new Customs and Border Protection facilities and $4 billion for new Customs officials and border personnel.

The committee proposes several billion dollars more in new technology to tighten security measures at the border and also includes $1 billion for security and planning for the 2028 Olympics, as well as $625 million for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The House Homeland Security Committee is also planning to begin voting on Tuesday on this aspect of the larger proposal.

Treasury secretary says House, Senate closer to deal on tax cuts

Bessent insisted Monday that many of Trump’s campaign promises on tax cuts are still top priorities to be included in the GOP’s bill and that negotiators were moving closer to an agreement.

“I think it’s as [Trump’s] always said: making TCJA permanent, no tax and tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, and deductibility for auto loans for American-made cars and media expensing – 100% expensing for equipment, and we are going to add factory structures for that also,” he told reporters.

Republicans, Bessent said, are aiming to wrap the “tax portion” of the president’s agenda by early July.

“We’ve got three legs to the president’s economic agenda: trade, tax and deregulation, and we hope that we can have this tax portion done by Fourth of July,” he said.

The secretary dodged when asked whether he can guarantee that the legislation congressional Republicans are negotiating will not be inflationary.

“What we can guarantee is that for working class Americans, that if this doesn’t pass, we’ll have the largest tax hike in history, and that when it does pass, they will see substantial savings in their tax bill and after-tax take-home,” he said.

Johnson – whose members routinely complain the Senate GOP is moving too slow to make good on Trump’s promises – is vowing to proceed urgently in the House. While the 2017 tax provisions do not expire until the end of the year, top Republicans want to move as quickly as possible to minimize infighting with their own narrow majority.

“[Bessent] says July Fourth, because that’s a big, big birthday for us and everybody knows that. But I think and I hope and believe that we can get it done sooner than that,” Johnson said. “I believe we can pass it by Memorial Day.”

This headline and story have been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Alison Main and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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