Senate Republicans vow action to boost border funds after briefing with Trump officials

[February 12, 2025]  By KEVIN FREKING and LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing warnings from President Donald Trump's border czar, Senate Republicans vowed Tuesday to move quickly on a budget plan that could pave the way for the passage of about $340 billion in additional border security and defense spending.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are trying to keep pace, hoping to unveil their own budget effort as soon as Wednesday that would also look to extend trillions of dollars in tax cuts passed in Trump's first term.

GOP senators are anxious to make progress on key aspects of Trump's domestic agenda. They heard Tuesday from Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, and Tom Homan, the former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, who is playing a key advisory role in Trump's second term. Both stressed the urgent need for more border resources.

“We're not building a wall, folks. We're hitting a wall,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “They need the money and they need it now.”

Graham's committee is taking up a budget plan for more border and defense spending on Wednesday and Thursday. The plan directs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to spend up to $175 billion and the Senate Armed Services Committee to spend up to $150 billion.

Graham said other committees will be instructed to come up with spending reductions from other government programs to pay for the border and defense funds, but he was unwilling to discuss specifics or his preferences, saying “there are a bunch out things out there” that could be cut.

“I'm hoping the authorizing committees have thought long and hard about where they can find savings,” Graham said.

The Senate plan calls for the added defense and border security spending to take place over four years and will be paid for over that same timeframe, Graham said.

Democrats worry that Republicans will look to Medicaid, which provides health insurance coverage for the poor, for the majority of savings.

“Democrats in the Senate will go to the mat to stop any cuts to Medicaid that will increase costs and take away health care from everyday Americans,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said after Graham unveiled the budget plan.

Republicans have been debating since last year whether to enact the bulk of Trump's agenda in one or two pieces of legislation. The Senate is moving on a two-bill track, while the House is moving on a one-bill track. It's unclear which side will win out in the end.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said details of that chamber's budget plan would probably be rolled out Tuesday night, but Majority Leader Steve Scalise subsequently said he expected the unveiling to take place Wednesday with the House Budget Committee taking votes on Thursday.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center, departs a news conference joined from left by Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz., and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., after discussing work on a spending bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

That's a bit behind the ambitious schedule that Johnson had set in January even as he now insists “we are right on the schedule that we need to be on.”

The budget plans being crafted are just the first step in an arduous and complicated legislative process. But it's a necessary step for unlocking a pathway that allows Republicans to pass legislation on their own if Democrats unanimously oppose it.

The process, called reconciliation, was used by Republicans to pass tax cuts in 2017. Democrats used it twice under Biden, passing a sweeping COVID relief plan in 2021 and then passing a massive climate and health care package in 2022.

House Republican leaders argue they can get more of Trump's priorities passed if they are rolled into one bill. Republican senators say they are fine with that approach in theory, but have some doubts the approach will work. The Republicans have the barest of majorities in the House and have repeatedly struggled to unify behind legislation.

In the last Congress, House Republicans were so divided that eight GOP members voted with Democrats to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, an unprecedented action.

“Again, appreciate what the House is trying to do, but they’re kind of spinning the wheels right now and we can’t afford to spin our wheels. We need to get the president the funding he needs to secure this border,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. "We’ve waited for a month. We can’t wait any longer.”

Trump has expressed a preference for Republicans to pass what he calls “one big beautiful bill.” But Graham said that the White House sending Vought and Homan to meet with senators is also a telling sign.

“I bet you they talked to (Trump) before they came over,” Graham told reporters. “... Why would they come over and tell us, begging for money, if they didn’t want to move?”

Graham said administration officials voiced chilling concerns during the briefing about the state of the U.S. border with Canada and Mexico, and Graham told reporters, “I’ve never been more worried about a terrorist attack on our homeland than I am now.”

"To the American people, if you’d like to finish the wall, we need more money to do it. If you want a more modern border, we need money to do it," Graham said. “If you believe that President Trump is right to track down and deport criminal aliens and clean up the mess that’s been created over the last four years, we need more ICE agents.”

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