House Speaker Mike Johnson admits to delays on ‘one big beautiful’ bill involving border, tax reform

House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted Sunday that the chamber’s GOPers may face yet another delay in drafting President Trump’s “one big beautiful” bill on everything from the border to tax reform.

The Louisiana Republican, under the gun from some GOP senators to move along the bill, said the House needs more time to address the proposal’s details, since it’s so large and his majority is so small.

“We were going to do a budget committee mark-up [review before floor introduction] next week,” Johnson said. “We might push it a little bit further because the details really matter.

“Remember that I have the smallest margin in history, about a two-vote margin currently. So I’ve got to make sure everyone agrees before we bring the project forward,” the speaker said.

Last week, Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) rolled out a plan to effectively leapfrog the House and take the lead on the bill, but Johnson (R-La.) cautioned Sunday that doing so risks dooming the process.

“At the end of the day, the House has to drive this process, and we will,” Johnson told “Fox News Sunday.”

He was apparently alluding to the fact that if the bill is to stay intact as opposed to becoming piecemeal legislation, it must go through the House first since major tax changes are required under the Constitution to originate in the lower chamber prior to getting taken up in the Senate.

“We’re going to get everybody together,” Johnson said.

“It has to be the one-big-bill strategy,” Johnson said. “And the reason for that is because that gives us the highest probability of success of delivering on all these campaign promises. We will get it done.”

Republicans in Congress are in the early stages of crafting Trump’s marquee legislative agenda package on energy, the border, defense, tax reform and more.

Johnson, 53, has been a staunch proponent of stuffing all those reforms into “one big beautiful bill.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) admitted Sunday that Republicans in the chamber will likely face additional delays on drafting the president’s “one big beautiful” bill agenda. FOX NEWS

Johnson is adamant that the House go first on the president’s agenda package, while Trump recently said he just wants it done. REUTERS

But Senate Republicans almost universally prefer to split the package into two, with a first tranche of border, energy and defense reforms and then a subsequent package on extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

There is generally a rough consensus between GOP hardliners and moderates on the first tranche of reforms. The second batch featuring tax reforms and deeper spending cuts is far more controversial, especially on the House side.

House GOP leaders such as Johnson fear that they will lose leverage with hardliners if the package gets split in two.

For procedural reasons, if the Senate goes first, it will have to be the two-bill approach because the House is required to go first on major tax changes under the Constitution. But the House has struggled to produce.

GOP leadership in the House had said the Budget Committee would do a mark-up last week of a budget resolution, which is needed to kick off the budget reconciliation process it needs to pass Trump’s agenda by sidestepping a Democratic filibuster.

That got punted to this coming week, and Johnson indicated in the interview that yet another delay could be on the horizon.

Trump’s agenda package is facing headwinds in the House of Representatives. AP

Initially, Trump had backed the one-bill approach but then recently said, “Whether it’s one bill, two bills, I don’t care.”

He said he just wants Congress to get something to his desk.

Graham, 69, unveiled his blueprint Friday that he intends to push this coming week, allowing the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees to beef up spending by $175 billion over the next 10 years for the border.

Armed Services would also get $150 billion in additional spending between fiscal years 2025 to 2034.

Overall, Graham’s blueprint would boost annual spending by about $85.5 billion but then pay for it with that same amount in cuts that have yet to be determined.

Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus have similarly favored a two-bill approach, which they believe would give them more leverage in negotiations over the tax components.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) rolled out a budget resolution last week in a bid to put pressure on House Republicans to get their act together. AP

“Lindsey is a good friend,” Johnson said. “I appreciate the Senate zeal. We have it in the House as well. But as I reminded my friend, Lindsey, I have about 170 additional personalities to deal with, and he’s only got 53 on the Republican side there.

“We have, you know, a very diverse caucus with lots of interests, but we are going to get this job done.”

Tax reform is complex in the House because of competing interests. Moderates want to increase the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, much to the chagrin of hardliners.

Trump has also pushed for eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security. Projections indicate that the cost of all of that will run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Additionally, nonpartisan groups have assessed that extending the 2017 tax cuts could add between $3.5 trillion and $3.9 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

The tough question is how to pay for all that — and it’s proving to be divisive among House Republicans, where there is almost no room for error.

Johnson has set his sights on passing the legislation by April.

Before then, he will also have to deal with a government-shutdown fight in mid-March, with Democrats champing at the bit to extract concessions for a bailout while hardliner Republicans have a track record of rejecting leadership’s plans.

“All options are on the table right now,” Johnson said. “Just getting everyone to agree to what that final spending number is going to be has been the holdup. But we have time, it’s early February, and the deadline is March 14.”

Notably, the shutdown fight pertains to the government funding package that Congress was supposed to push through in September.

Trump huddled with House Republican leaders in the White House for about four and a half hours last week as they tried to hash out various sticking points.