Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune met on Tuesday and discussed the sweeping domestic policy legislation at the top of their 2025 agenda.
The closed-door conversation came as the House and Senate struggle to quickly get on the same page as they try to pass President Donald Trump’s tax, energy and border priorities into law. Thune separately convened a meeting of GOP senators Tuesday to discuss the legislation.
“Both of us understand we’ve got to get this done. We’re trying to figure out the best way to do that,” Thune said after the meeting with Johnson, part of a regular series of meetings between the two leaders. “This is just a long, arduous process, but we’ll get there.”
House Republicans are negotiating a bill that aligns with their budget resolution, which teed up a single sprawling package containing all of Trump’s party-line priorities. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are warning that they are weeks away from being ready move as they discuss specifics of tax and spending cuts.
That’s led to House Republicans increasingly kvetching that they believe the Senate is moving too slowly. After a member of the Senate Finance Committee floated this week that the real deadline for getting the bill done is August, Johnson told reporters that “August is far too late.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
