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IN THIS EDITION

The 5 things you need to know about the future of Trump’s agenda

Main Street Caucus angles to be top Trump allies

The Vault: Tim Scott’s banking agenda takes shape

Cabinet nom wars heat up as Hegseth inches closer to confirmation

Top Scalise aide heading to BHFS

THE TOP

The 5 things you need to know about the future of Trump’s agenda

Happy Wednesday morning.

Let’s talk about the future of President-elect Donald Trump’s policy agenda on Capitol Hill. There’s a lot going on here already, even before Trump is sworn in on Monday.

First. At 3 p.m. today, the House Republican leadership will host a meeting on tax policy in the upcoming reconciliation package(s) in the Cannon Caucus Room. The room is officially called the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Caucus Room, but House Republicans don’t seem to want to call it that. This meeting is for members only, and attendance is “highly encouraged.” We’ll have all the details out of this meeting later today.

Second. Let’s now discuss Speaker Mike Johnson’s very aggressive timeline for reconciliation. This is going to be a huge lift, despite all the GOP prep work.

In the closed House Republican Conference meeting Tuesday, Johnson presented a slide that said he wants the chamber to pass the budget resolution for reconciliation by Feb. 27. That’s just six weeks from now.

Here’s the pathway: Johnson wants to release the budget resolution and mark it up the week of Feb. 3, with a floor vote the week of Feb. 10. Johnson projects the Senate will consider it during the week of Feb. 17. And then the speaker wants the House to pass the resolution with any Senate’s changes the week of Feb. 24.

Then, in the House Republican leadership’s view, GOP members and senators would spend March crafting the reconciliation package, getting it to Trump’s desk before Easter, which falls on April 20.

In other words, the House GOP leadership is hoping to pass taxes, border security and energy policy between now and April 10, when the House is scheduled to recess for Easter.

During the middle of all that, Congress has to fund the federal government, potentially pass a debt-limit increase and send perhaps tens of billions of dollars to California to help it rebuild after once-in-a-generation wildfires.

We understand the strategy of setting deadlines. They help create urgency. But this is a very aggressive timeline. We’re skeptical that this deadline will hold, as are a lot of Republican lawmakers and aides in private.

A smart man once told us: With Congress, always bet the over. It’s good advice.

Third. The House GOP leadership decided last year to place a government funding fight smack dab in the middle of Trump’s first 100 days. And we must remind you that the government runs out of money on March 14. That’s just 58 days away.

Now consider this: Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune will soon ask Democrats to help them pass a government-funding bill, possibly combined with a four-year debt-limit increase. (Debt limit is falling out of reconciliation, sources tell us). At the same time, they’re going to be passing a budget resolution that chops hundreds of billions — or trillions — from government outlays. This will be a very difficult pill for Democrats to swallow.

Fourth. One of the big issues right now in reconciliation is how Republicans fix the state and local tax deduction. The SALT cap was put in place by Trump and Republicans in the 2017 tax law. All but 13 House Republicans voted for it. And now many blue-state House Republicans want to repeal it.

The bipartisan SALT Caucus met Tuesday afternoon. Republicans involved in the group said the House Ways and Means Committee is working on running models to show how different SALT caps will impact different congressional districts around the country.

After meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, Republicans who want SALT relief view their next step as agreeing on a number to push for among themselves. They’d then bring it to GOP colleagues.

The SALT backers might also propose some different ways to offer SALT relief — like allowing more deductions up to a certain income level, for one — rather than just a cap increase.

Meanwhile, Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) plan to re-introduce a bill calling for the full repeal of the SALT cap. This is simply laying a marker. It won’t pass the House or become law.

Fifth. In the reconciliation instructions that House Republican leadership is working on, they plan to detail the cuts as a floor instead of a ceiling. In other words, if Republicans want the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to cut $200 billion, they’ll say the panel should cut “no less than $100 billion.”

That gives House Republicans some more breathing room when crafting their reconciliation bill, especially if they run into any unexpected challenges with spending cuts given the razor-thin House margin.

House floor next week: As California continues to battle devastating wildfires that have killed at least 25 people and destroyed thousands of buildings in Los Angeles, House Republicans plan to bring Rep. Bruce Westerman’s (R-Ark.) Fix Our Forest Act to the floor next week. The bipartisan bill — which passed with 55 Democratic votes in the last Congress — seeks to reshape U.S. forest management processes to mitigate wildfire damage.

House GOP leaders also plan to hold a vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, as well as the Senate version of the Laken Riley Act, which is expected to pass that chamber next week (the House passed its own version). Republicans want to make this immigration bill the first legislation Trump signs into law when he returns to office.

— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan, Melanie Zanona and Laura Weiss

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TRUMP TRAIN

Main Street Caucus angles to be top Trump allies

Main Street Caucus Republicans are cozying up to President-elect Donald Trump, as the 80-member group seeks to expand their influence this Congress.

The caucus has been working behind the scenes to grow their relationships with Trump allies and are determined to be on the frontlines of advancing his legislative agenda through the House.

Main Street leaders — Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) and Mike Flood (R-Neb.) — met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last weekend to discuss his reconciliation strategy and policy goals. Trump told the group he will need their help for any legislative negotiations and recognized the House’s slim majority, according to people in the room.

“Main Street members are team players,” Flood told us. “We are working hand in glove with the White House. They are relying on our counsel.”

Making inroads: While the House Freedom Caucus has traditionally been viewed as the Trumpiest group on the Hill, the more pragmatic Main Street Caucus is positioning itself as his new right hand.

The group made a decision to coordinate with Trump World at the start of the 2024 campaign cycle. Trump ended up endorsing several Main Street members and didn’t publicly go after Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), just one of two House Republicans left who voted to impeach Trump in 2021.

Trump did, however, endorse a primary challenger to Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who also voted to impeach Trump. But we’re told Main Street members secured a commitment from Trump that he wouldn’t attack the group for helping Newhouse.

Between the start of the cycle and now, Main Street leaders have held several calls with Trump allies and regularly talk to Trump congressional liaisons James Braid and Jeff Freeland, who met with the group earlier this month.

Dusty Johnson also took the lead on a bill that would authorize Trump’s desire to purchase the Panama Canal. The caucus chair told us he spoke with Trump’s team about the legislation.

Not to mention, Dusty Johnson also inserted himself into the standoff over the speakership vote earlier this month. Both he and Flood helped to work over dissenters on the House floor, and Dusty Johnson joined members in a private room where the holdouts spoke to Trump by phone before flipping their votes to Speaker Mike Johnson.

Embracing MAGA: While Main Street leadership represents safe Republican districts, the group is also home to politically vulnerable members.

In a previous Congress, these members may have worked to distance themselves from Trump, but with his strong performance in November, even members in purple districts are tying themselves to the president-elect. Still, there could be a risk in being so closely aligned with Trump.

“We have a few members from New York and New Jersey, and Trump also overperformed in those states,” Dusty Johnson said. “Those members are not looking to run away from Trump.”

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), a Main Street member, was an early endorser of Trump, while Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) signed onto a bill by firebrand Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” — an idea Trump floated during a news conference last week.

And while Main Street is known as more of a serious governing group of members on the Hill, the group’s leadership said it eschews any association with the idea of being centrist.

“We are not a moderate or middle-of-the-road swing district group,” Bice said. “We have very, very conservative members that are focused on conservative wins.”

— Mica Soellner and Melanie Zanona

NOMINATION NATION

Cabinet nom wars heat up as Hegseth inches closer to confirmation

Senate Democrats came into Tuesday’s confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth hoping they could engineer a death blow to his nomination to lead the Pentagon.

While Democrats certainly landed plenty of punches, it quickly became clear that Hegseth had survived the most perilous stretch of his nearly two-month journey as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary.

The result? Hegseth appears to be on a glide path to Senate confirmation, possibly as soon as next week.

In short, Hegseth accomplished exactly what he needed to. He notched a key win when Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) officially backed his nomination following the hearing, all but ensuring he’ll make it through the Armed Services Committee on Monday. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Hegseth “made a strong argument” for why he should get the job and vowed to move “quickly” to confirm the former Fox News host along with Trump’s other national security nominees.

Lee-Heinrich spat: Senate Energy Committee Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) rebuffed calls from the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), to delay energy secretary nominee Chris Wright’s confirmation hearing, further escalating an intense clash inside the normally sleepy committee even before it’s officially met.

Heinrich wanted a postponement Tuesday because the panel didn’t yet have all of the requisite documents on Wright. Hours later, Lee said the committee received the documents. The Utah Republican said Democrats will have “more than sufficient time” to review them before voting on the nomination. Wright’s hearing will proceed as scheduled this morning.

In response, Heinrich said Lee’s suggestion was “absurd” and added this zinger: “It is especially rich coming from a Senator who has made a routine of singlehandedly delaying or killing countless bills in the Senate. Spare us the lecture.”

Also: Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the FBI, met Tuesday with Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

— Andrew Desiderio and Max Cohen

AND THERE’S MORE

Top Scalise aide heading to BHFS

Breaking leadership news: Bart Reising, the deputy chief of staff to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, is leaving Capitol Hill to join Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Reising is an incredibly close aide to Scalise and runs his member services operation – a key job for any member of leadership. Reising will be BHFS’ House Republican leadership lead.

Here’s what Scalise had to say about Reising in a statement:

BHFS represents companies like Honeywell, McDonald’s, ConocoPhillips, Verizon, Apollo, FedEx and Duke Energy.

DNC news. Maryland Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Kweisi Mfume are endorsing former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s bid to lead the DNC. The new endorsements come as House Democrats will gather today to hear pitches from the candidates.

Job moves. Greg Butcher, who was digital director at CLF for two cycles, is launching Alamo Intelligence, a campaign and I.E. firm.

— Max Cohen

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CLIPS