President Donald Trump urged Republicans in Congress to pursue a "slim" spending bill in Congress focused on funding immigration enforcement, weighing in on a spat that has divided GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Trump in an interview with Fox Business said that the legislation will focus "mostly" on funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, downplaying the likelihood that Republican lawmakers will be able to add tax cuts or other economic priorities to entice voters ahead of the midterms.
"We're putting some things as we go along, but you know you've heard the expression 'We want to keep it sort of slim,' because we want to make sure that I have the safest border in the history of our country," Trump said in the interview that aired on Wednesday.
Senate Republicans are pushing a spending bill aimed at providing funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol through a so-called reconciliation bill, which can pass with a simple majority on a party-line basis. That maneuver would allow Republicans to circumvent Democrats who have held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a bid to force changes to immigration enforcement policy.
House Republicans have argued the package should also include some politically popular measures to address voters' cost of living concerns as the GOP faces an uphill battle to maintain their majority in the chamber.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune aims to press ahead with a narrowly focused or "anorexic" policy bill to speed passage despite those calls from within his party to include new tax cuts and rollbacks to entitlement programs. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate and have a narrow majority in the House, and used the same reconciliation process to pass Trump's first flagship policy bill last year.
Trump's polls have slumped this year amid the war in Iran, raising fears that Republicans will lose their majority in the House and possibly the Senate, though that would require Democrats to defeat Republican incumbents and win races in several states Trump won in 2024.
The president has complicated that funding bill effort by urging his party to include other measures, including on voting and transgender policies. Trump told Fox Business he would "look" at adding the SAVE America Act to the package. That would require voters to establish proof of citizenship and show photo identification before casting a ballot, and would authorize mass purges of voter rolls without requiring affected voters.
Trump has sought to shore up Republican fortunes ahead of the November election, urging his party to talk up enlarged tax refunds from last year's tax-and-spending package that could bolster U.S. households. The White House has dubbed this week as tax week in a bid to seize on the April 15 filing deadline to highlight Trump's policies.
