‘Swamp’s going to swamp’: Hard-line GOPers threaten to complicate Trump's political agenda

When Donald Trump returns to Washington as the 47th president next week, he will assume united control of the federal government – but Republican hard-liners are already exposing intraparty rifts over how to move forward on key elements of the president-elect’s legislative agenda in Congress.

That’s especially true when it comes to ongoing discussions revolving around whether to raise the debt ceiling, with some Freedom Caucus members signaling that any increase needs to be part of the reconciliation bill, NOTUS reported Tuesday.

And those hard-line conservative lawmakers don’t appear ready to take no for an answer – setting the party up for an early governing test in the new Trump administration.

“We should put it on one of the reconciliation bills so that we don’t have to pass it with Chuck Schumer,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, told NOTUS.

But some members like Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) who have never voted to raise the debt limit may be unwilling to start now, the publication noted. That’s where Trump’s idea for House Speaker Mike Johnson to combine the debt limit package with disaster aid for California came into play.

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“While the suggestion is already angering Democrats, it may be a way for Johnson — for the time being — to ignore his promise to make $2.5 trillion in cuts,” according to NOTUS. “But again, hard-line Republicans are a problem.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) called tying federal aid for California wildfires to the debt limit proposal “bull----” and told the outlet the “swamp’s going to swamp.”

“The effort by normal swamp creatures to put the debt ceiling along with either appropriations or the California supplemental, which is coming like a freight train, is done precisely to achieve their desired result, which is to spend a crap ton of money. It is purposeful,” Roy told NOTUS. “So, yeah, I oppose that.”

Still, nothing has been removed from the table at this point.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Johnson said that he is “not really wed” to raising the debt ceiling in reconciliation, calling the proposal merely “the initial idea,” NOTUS reported.

“It’s part of the process. We got to get everyone to ‘yes,’” Johnson said in a brief interview with the outlet. “It’s a slow process, slower for some than others, but it’s part of my reality.”