Sen. Rand Paul is a frequent thorn in GOP leadership’s side. But his recent break over border security funding in President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” has top Republicans pushing the bounds of institutional norms to rein him in.
Senior Republicans have sidelined the Kentucky Republican, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in their talks with the White House over policies under the panel’s purview.
Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told POLITICO he has taken over as the lead negotiator around how to shepherd through tens of billions of dollars for border wall construction and related infrastructure in the GOP megabill. Meanwhile, a Senate Republican aide said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) — who heads the relevant Homeland Security subcommittee — will be the point person for negotiating the bill’s government affairs provisions.
With every other committee chair helping manage negotiations for their panels’ portions of the massive tax and spending package, cutting Paul out is unprecedented. But Paul proposed funding border security at a fraction of what the administration requested and the House passed in its bill.
“Senator Paul usually votes ‘no’ and blames everybody else for not being pure enough,” Graham told POLITICO. “As chairman, you … don’t have that luxury sometimes. You have to do things as chairman you wouldn’t have to do as a rank-and-file member.”
Indeed, few of Paul’s own committee members appear willing to defend him. Paul lost an ally in Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a fellow deficit hawk, after top White House adviser Stephen Miller briefed senators on the administration’s border request and made a persuasive argument. Graham said the meeting was requested by him and Majority Leader John Thune to “contest” Paul’s offer. Paul did not attend.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said Paul’s decision to draft his own proposal “without any consultation of the committee” was concerning, adding that he had “never seen that happen before.”
Nonetheless, Paul still believes some pieces of his own plan unrelated to border security will end up in the final bill, he told POLITICO on Wednesday, and that he’s involved in ongoing talks with the Senate parliamentarian.
Speaking of the parliamentarian: Senate rule-keeper Elizabeth MacDonough is scrubbing the final draft of the megabill in a “big beautiful” Byrd bath. Her rulings on which provisions will fly under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process are expected to roll in through the middle of next week, when Thune wants to schedule the first procedural vote related to the package.
Republicans are bracing for an answer to one consequential question they punted on earlier this year: whether they can use an accounting maneuver known as “current policy baseline” to make it appear that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts would cost nothing.
Senate Finance Republicans and Democrats will make a joint presentation to MacDonough this weekend about which provisions to keep or scrap. And there’s no shortage of GOP priorities under Byrd scrutiny — from tax cuts on certain gun silencers to a plan to raise taxes on foreign companies known as the “revenge tax.”
Other outstanding issues before the parliamentarian: whether Commerce has to tweak language to prohibit states from regulating AI over the next decade; whether Judiciary can block judges’ ability to issue preliminary injunctions; and whether Agriculture can use the megabill to pay for pieces of the stalled farm bill.
What else we’re watching:
— More megabill timeline hurdles: The Senate majority leader is ramping up efforts to quell rebellions within his conference over the megabill as he works to get it to the floor next week. That includes talking to Trump, who he frequently refers to as his “closer,” on a near-daily basis, Thune said. Meanwhile, Hawley is urging GOP leaders to strike Senate Finance’s language that would largely reduce the provider tax to 3.5 percent from 6 percent, warning that it won’t fly with House Republicans who voted to freeze, rather than reduce, the tax that many states use to fund their Medicaid programs.
— Iran classified briefing: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has privately confirmed there will be an all-senators classified briefing on Iran early next week, a Schumer aide said. It comes as Trump says he’ll decide within the next two weeks whether to strike the country amid its escalating confrontation with Israel.
— Trump pushes Senate’s crypto bill: Trump is urging House Republicans to send a “clean” version of the Senate-passed stablecoin regulatory framework to his desk “LIGHTNING FAST” — dialing up the pressure on congressional Republicans as they mull changes to the bill, including potentially packaging it with broader digital-assets market structure legislation.
Hailey Fuchs, Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
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