Is Donald Trump's desire for a "big beautiful bill" to launch his legislative agenda a sign the GOP is headed for a train wreck that could derail their momentum

Donald Trump and Mike Johnson (Getty)

 

Donald Trump is urging Congressional Republicans to help launch his legislative agenda with a "big, beautiful bill" whose size is designed to help get it passed as quickly as possible. A number of news outlets have reported that creating and shepherding such a large document is likely to be complicated, especially for a president-elect who never has shown much interest in the mechanics of government. Count Sarah Jones and Jason Easley, of thedaily@ politicususa.com, among those who see big trouble looming for Trump and his party -- and perhaps for the U.S. economy. Under the headline "Trump's Latest Big Idea Will Sink Republicans; According to Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump wants all of his legislative agenday put into one bill to be passed all at once. This will be a disaster," Jones and Easley write:

Mike Johnson Unveils Trump’s Big (Dumb) Idea

Over the past decade, Donald Trump has repeatedly confirmed that he knows nothing about governing. He has also proven that he has no interest in governing, so the United States is about to find out what will happen when one of the most governing inept presidents in history decides that he has an idea and no one in his party is brave enough to say no.

Mike Johnson explained what Trump wants to do on Fox News:

 The idea would be to get something done on the border and maybe defense spending right out of the blocks very quickly and what we would call a skinny reconciliation bill and then do other things. The rest of it in a larger chunk later, but I think at the end of the day, President Trump is going to prefer, as he likes to say, one big beautiful bill.

And there's a lot of merit to that, because we can put it all together, one big up or down vote, which can save the country, quite literally, because there are so many elements to it, and it'll give us a little bit more time to negotiate that and get it right. That doesn't mean that we won't come right out of the gates.

You know, full fledged, right out of the beginning of the Congress, and so we'll be addressing border. We've got a number of bills just over the next two weeks, Maria, that we're going to address the low hanging fruit, so to speak. I think that there's some things that are so common sense that we've got to focus on the border.

We might even be able to get some Democrat votes on some of that legislation, but we'll pass it out of the House and send it over to the Senate and get it ready for when President Trump takes office on January 20th. We have a lot to do and a short amount of time to do it in.

House Republicans will have a 217-215 majority and, after special elections, will have a 219-215 majority.

Do Jones and Easley see problems with the Trump/Johnson approach? Yes, indeed:

One Big Beautiful Train Wreck

This is an even smaller House majority than the one that couldn’t agree on a bill to fund the government before Christmas and needed Democratic help to get it done...

It appears such help from across the aisle will not be coming this time. Have Trump and Johnson factored that into the equation that is designed to move a "big, beautiful bill" forward? We should start to know in about two weeks.