A group of senior House Republicans gathered at the Pentagon on Thursday morning to discuss the military funding portion of another party-line reconciliation bill with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to four people granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger and others also attended the meeting.
It’s a sign conversations around “Reconciliation 3.0” are heating up after President Donald Trump signed the GOP-only immigration enforcement funding measure earlier this week.
It also comes after Trump on Wednesday night called for the GOP to approve $350 billion in Pentagon spending alongside a partisan election bill known as the SAVE America Act — which has been stalled in the Senate for weeks.
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in response to Trump’s latest demands, noted that even some of the election measure’s most vocal Senate GOP advocates have said it can’t fit within the strict contours governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process. And he didn’t commit to ultimately pursuing a third partisan package, either.
“We’re, as I’ve said before, open to using reconciliation if we make the calculation that we can achieve an outcome that [it’s] something we can get 50 votes for and 218 for,” Thune said, adding, “I’ve said before, at the moment I’m not sure what that is.”
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