GOP Squabbling Shows Passing Trump’s Agenda Is Harder Than Doing Executive Orders

House and Senate Republicans are sniping at each other over tax cuts and cuts to Medicaid.

WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump takes a maximalist approach to executive power and a chainsaw to federal agencies, Republicans on Capitol Hill are struggling to coalesce around actual legislation to enact his agenda.

In a strikingly passive-aggressive statement on Monday morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his top deputies criticized Senate Republicans for not adopting the budget resolution that the House approved last month. In response, a Senate Republican aide noted the House has spent more time on recess than the Senate.

The intra-party sniping reflects the difficult task confronting Republicans in Congress, where they have slim majorities but huge ambitions for legislation that extends more than $4 trillion worth of tax cuts, boosts border security while slashing federal spending in a way that saves significant money while not cutting so deep that Republicans representing moderate House districts won’t vote for it.

The standoff shows the difficulty of actually governing within the constitutional system — in contrast to Trump’s attempts to reshape the government through unilateral actions that have included mass firings and wholesale demolition of federal agencies.

“The House is determined to send the president one big, beautiful bill that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, grows our economy, restores American energy dominance, brings back peace through strength, and makes government more efficient and more accountable to the American people,” Johnson and his top deputies said in their joint statement.