President Donald Trump is putting the pedal to the metal this weekend, optimistically looking to parlay a string of recent successes into another legislative victory Saturday afternoon.
Trump had planned to depart the White House Friday for his private club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he frequently spends summer weekends golfing and attending fundraisers. However, the president shifted gears Thursday, opting instead to stay in Washington, D.C., and use his bully pulpit to ensure the Senate passes his tax and spending reconciliation bill, according to senior White House advisers.
“He’s heavily involved. He’s met with leaders from the Senate this week. He’s spoken to members over the phone. He’s intimately engaged with his senior advisers and staff, getting updates and really pushing for an agreement and final deal,” one senior White House aide told the Washington Examiner on Friday. “He’s not lifting his foot off the gas and making sure this bill gets on his desk for signature in a week.”
Trump had originally set a July 4 deadline for Congress to send the reconciliation bill to his desk to be signed into law, and he has just one week to wrangle multiple groups of Republican critics into submission to meet that goal.
Close advisers to the president suggested to the Washington Examiner that Trump will now spend the weekend pushing to close the gap between disparate camps of congressional Republicans, emboldened by his decisive military action against Iran’s nuclear capabilities last weekend and a significant ruling from the Supreme Court on Friday stopping district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions against his executive actions.
“POTUS looked like a kid in a candy shop,” one senior Republican operative, a veteran of Trump’s first term in office, remarked of Trump’s hourlong press conference Friday morning at the White House.
The event had originally been scheduled to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling, but when asked about the Senate’s recent run-ins with the parliamentarian, Trump couldn’t help but give the bill some spin.
“It’s a great bill. It’s a massive tax cut. If it’s not approved, your taxes will go up by 68% — 68, a record, the highest in history. The Democrats won’t approve it only because, politically, it’s so good for the Republicans,” he joked in response. “If I were a Democrat, I would vote for this bill all day long, because it’s tax cuts and so many other things that are common sense.”
Furthermore, Trump has maintained a steady barrage of social media posts, touting individual provisions within the multitrillion-dollar spending bill.
“After many years of decline in our air traffic control system, the One Big Beautiful Bill will modernize this decrepit relic and give America the best, most advanced air traffic control system on Earth—THE BEST BY FAR!” he said in a video posted to Truth Social Friday afternoon.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed one version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last month despite late opposition from Republican budget holdouts, and changes put in place by the Senate threaten to break that truce once the bill is sent back to the lower chamber.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) set an “aspirational” deadline for a vote at noon on Saturday without a formal agreement on changes to the state and local tax caps included within the House bill. The Senate eventually recessed Friday night, without producing a complete reconciliation text, and is to return to business Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
Prior to this weekend, White House officials told the Washington Examiner that Trump had left direct talks with House lawmakers about their new concerns with the Senate bill to White House director of legislative affairs James Braid and other advisers.
“The president has always maintained that he is willing to make a call. He’s willing to invite anyone willing to work with him on getting this bill passed. He’s not necessarily eager or willing to engage with grandstanders that are going to remain a ‘no,’ but he does think that the Republican Party wants to have a win on this, and he’s happy to find a way to get there,” that person assessed, noting that Trump currently “has probably the most amount of political capital he’s ever had” and wants to use it.
Still, the president did appear to move the goalposts slightly during his Friday press conference.
“It’s important, but it’s not the end all,” Trump conceded when asked about the possibility Republicans can’t meet his July 4 deadline. “It could be longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time, if possible.”
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“Look, I wouldn’t say we’re worried, but the president’s on a bit of a hot streak, and I think he’s trying to do whatever he can to keep it going,” a White House aide offered when asked about the president’s hedge.