WASHINGTON — Before taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump vowed that the first 100 days of his second administration would be stacked with executive orders and major legislative action fulfilling his agenda.
While Trump himself has lived up to that promise, congressional Republicans are falling behind.
A few months into the GOP trifecta, Congress has passed only four bills that have been signed into law. Republican leaders in both the House and Senate have scrambled to advance their massive reconciliation package that would implement most of Trump’s agenda in one fell swoop — but that process has been drawn out over disagreements on what to include and how to offset the costs.
Meanwhile, internal strife between rank-and-file members has caused divisions on minor issues that have caused major delays in Trump’s plans.
“Micro battles will always affect a Republican majority. We are not a Fall-In-Line-Just-Because-Leadership-Says-So type of conference. That is an amazingly positive thing for our republic,” Utah Rep. Blake Moore, who serves as vice chairman of the House GOP Conference, told the Deseret News. “That said, I’m not going to gaslight. That internal strife will always be a hindrance to accomplishing big objectives.”
‘Micro issues’ threaten big-picture priorities
To get a glimpse into how small disagreements have big consequences, look no further than this past week in the House.
A months-long fight over whether to allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely finally came to a head on Tuesday when nine Republicans joined all Democrats in defeating a bid by GOP leadership to nix the proposal.
The failed effort dealt a major blow to Republican leaders, who strategized for days on how to block the bill from reaching the floor. The unsuccessful bid then prompted GOP leadership to cancel votes for the rest of the week, leaving the House in temporary paralysis.
“Let me just make this clear: That rule being brought down means that we can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Tuesday.
That meant delayed action on two major cornerstones of Trump’s agenda: the SAVE Act, which would ban noncitizens from voting, and the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would restrict judges from blocking his presidential executive orders.
The vote also pushed back two Senate resolutions seeking to overturn Biden-era rules related to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
“All that was just wiped off the table,” Johnson said. “It’s very unfortunate.”
But Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, the Republican co-sponsor behind the parent voting bill, accused Johnson of misassigning the blame — arguing GOP leadership had the opportunity to bring the legislation to the floor without tying them to her proxy voting petition.
“Here are the facts a lot of people are not sharing… for a reason,” Luna said in a post on X. “The fact is (House Majority Leader Steve Scalise) controls the floor and sent Congress home. They also held POTUS legislation for literally MONTHS. Until this vote.”
The issue took on more prominence this week after Trump endorsed Luna’s proposal, telling reporters he doesn’t “know why it’s controversial.”
Hours later, Luna announced she had spoken with Johnson and is in talks to tinker with the proxy voting resolution. However, Johnson came out on Friday to say Trump is on his side of the argument — and warning that Congress “cannot open that Pandora’s box again.”
Even if Luna does move forward with some form of her proxy voting bill, some Republicans say they will adamantly oppose any changes to House rules that state members must be physically present to cast their votes.
“As one of just 435 members entrusted to represent 750,000 Americans, we have a duty to show up to work and vote in person,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in a statement. The people elected us to advance President Trump’s agenda to secure the border and cut spending, not to waste time to change the House rules for our own convenience. Americans across the country clock in every day—Congress should too.”
Moore brushed off what he called a “micro issue” working itself out in the lower chamber, telling the Deseret News that Republicans have had similar disagreements before — but they are always able to overcome them, he noted.
“This is something we have to address but it’s not derailing our overall strategy,” Moore said. “I don’t see it having lasting vibrations against what we ultimately want to accomplish.”
Meanwhile, House and Senate volley on tax legislation
But even as GOP leaders try to focus their attention on Trump’s massive tax reconciliation bill, that has hit some roadblocks along the way due to disagreements between House and Senate Republicans.
The Senate is moving forward with its budget blueprint this weekend, detailing plans to raise the debt ceiling while advancing a number of Trump’s priorities on the border, national defense, and energy. Despite already passing its own blueprint, the House will need to approve the latest version before lawmakers can begin drafting the full package.
That could be easier said than done as Johnson must contend with a razor-thin margin, total Democratic opposition, and a handful of Republicans who are not yet sold on some of the components.
The Senate-based resolution closely mirrors the one from the House, but it contains some key differences.
Most notably, the Senate iteration would make the tax cuts in Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent — something the House resolution did not do but became a redline for several Senate Republicans. The resolution does so by utilizing an accounting maneuver known as a current policy baseline to make the cost of such extensions amount to $0.
The Senate resolution also includes a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling, which comes in above the $4 trillion increase in the House blueprint. That could be tricky to sell to some fiscal hawks in the House, but Senate leaders justify the number by saying it helps to punt the issue until well past the 2026 midterm elections and doesn’t require negotiations with Democrats.
But that could be tough to swallow for some House Republicans, who typically oppose raising the debt ceiling anyway.
“I had trouble with $4 trillion,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said on Monday. “I went along with it, but I had trouble with it.”
Once both chambers can pass an identical resolution, committees will get to work on drafting the full package. However, the House and Senate have approved different sets of spending cut targets — which could lead to testy negotiations down the road.