The News
The Trump White House hopes to revive Americans’ faith in its economic management with a new sales pitch for this year’s major economic legislation — and will maybe try for a sequel next year.
The summer’s party-line tax cuts — aka President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — were designed as the centerpiece of a 2026 midterm campaign. But even Republicans concede the bill hasn’t yet resonated with the public, and is now eclipsed by a fight over health care costs.
Now, as Trump prepares for a scheduled Tuesday trip to Pennsylvania, his advisers and Republican leaders want to persuade the public of the benefits in that bill, while also discussing a potential follow-up.
“There is a substantial lack of knowledge amongst the public about what was in our reconciliation bill,” an administration official told Semafor, referring to the mechanism used to pass the tax plan without Democratic votes.
The official said a second attempt at a GOP-only economic package next year isn’t out of the question: “[If] we can rally the party on Capitol Hill to make substantial strides on policy that impacts voters, particularly impacts voters in their pocketbook, the more the better.”
Rallying congressional Republicans for another go-round on a big economic bill won’t be easy. The narrow House majority is nearly paralyzed by deep divisions. And while Republican senators agree the public isn’t yet aware of the tax bill’s upsides, some believe that tax refunds in April, rather than a more legislation sequel, will cheer up dour voters.
“I don’t think there’s any speech, any social media posts that can say, ‘Don’t you feel better?’” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who predicted the party’s tax law will sink in next year. “Economic issues is not: Somebody tells me, ‘You feel better.’ You have to actually feel better.”
Americans, according to polling, do not feel better. Gallup’s economic confidence index fell seven percentage points last month, with just 27% of people saying the US economy is improving.
They could feel worse soon. Ahead of an expected spike in health premiums for millions of people, the White House recently postponed unveiling a proposal targeting health care costs and left sorting out details of a plan to lawmakers. On top of that, Trump has lowered tariffs on some goods to respond to rising prices but otherwise embraced his widespread levies.
Trump, meanwhile, has spent much of the last month engaged in foreign policy and courting Gulf investment, while dismissing any public focus on economic dissatisfaction as a Democratic attack.
The administration official said Trump aides are cognizant of how voters feel and know that the economy and affordability are what win elections, adding that recent news of the health care plan was a leak of an unfinished product and that conversations continue.
Trump is expected to take more domestic trips, too, though future locations and timing remain unknown. A senior White House official told Semafor that Trump will discuss how he is “delivering on his Day One priority of ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis” in his upcoming travels.
Republicans are all over the place on more tangible solutions.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., is among those pitching Trump directly on another party-line bill. But Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told Semafor that a party-line bill is “not my first option” and said he would prefer doing bipartisan bills on trade, health care, and taxes.
“If we know exactly what we’re trying to accomplish before we get started? Yes. We don’t know that. So, I don’t want to do a reconciliation [bill] just to say we did a reconciliation bill,” Lankford said.
The administration official said it’s a “moving target” for what would go in another party-line bill, making clear that the party needs to sell the first one as it works on the next.
Know More
Meanwhile, the GOP is waiting for Trump to give clear direction on health care.
“We don’t even have a consensus on the Republican side on health care changes. And I don’t expect my Democratic colleagues to stick their neck out and join with us when we don’t have a consensus on our side,” Kennedy said.
The White House believes “the current system is not working to deliver health care at reasonable prices for everyday Americans,” spokesman Kush Desai told Semafor.
Some Republicans are still skeptical of Trump’s push to give money directly to health care consumers, leaving them without a plan that can actually make it to the president’s desk.
Republicans are more amenable to the White House’s call to keep selling what’s already law. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his staff are instructing GOP senators and their aides to redouble their efforts to talk about the tax cut bill next year back in the states, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has a difficult reelection race, said he’s working with his staff to emphasize the major provisions in the law.
“The ‘one big, beautiful bill’ was enormously important, but we just haven’t been able to explain the details enough to bring it home to average working families,” Cornyn said.
Trump also wants to kill the filibuster in the Senate to allow his priorities to pass far more easily and wants Congress to approve tariff rebate checks that many Republicans oppose, making their passage highly unlikely. And other Republicans want Trump to remove more tariffs, a major sticking point with the White House.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who faces a tough reelection campaign, said she continues to hear from Mainers about the effect of tariffs on Canada, particularly on steel and aluminum.
“The tariffs ultimately are passed on to the consumer,” Collins told Semafor. “That’s why I was pleased that the president rolled back the tariffs on coffee and bananas. He’s starting to recognize that a lot of those tariffs go straight to the consumers.”
Room for Disagreement
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., wants Congress to pass a farm bill and a new transportation bill next year to help with the economy.
Still, Cramer said he’s not worried about next year: “[I]f we did nothing more, and the president keeps repealing rules and regulations, then 2026 is going to be a rocket ship.”
Shelby and Burgess’ View
Trump is still more focused on big foreign policy efforts as he seeks to deliver long-lasting, legacy-burnishing changes on the world stage. Yet Republicans need to change the narrative on the home front to hang on to control of Congress.
If Trump decides to focus fully on the economy and affordability, Republicans might come to some agreements — after all, he has demonstrated a clear ability to bend his party to his will, and Republicans can still pass major legislation without Democrats.
But until he gets more involved, his party seems rudderless. And Trump’s road trip risks repeating his predecessor’s mistakes.
“He’s making exactly the same mistakes President Biden made, which is really kind of shocking to see, given that President Biden’s mistakes were a big contributing factor to [Trump] being reelected,” said Michael R. Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the center-right American Enterprise Institute.
Notable
- Trump may hold a second economic event in addition to the Pennsylvania trip first reported by Axios.
- One of Trump’s favorite economic approaches is direct payments, an idea he came up with more than a decade ago as he weighed a run for governor of New York, Semafor reported.