STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President-elect Trump met with Senate Republicans yesterday and talked with them about passing a bill - or bills - that will cover as many of his priorities as possible. Ron Bonjean joins us now to talk about this. He is a GOP strategist who has worked in both the House and Senate. Ron, welcome back.
RON BONJEAN: Hi. Good morning. Thank you.
INSKEEP: OK, so we're talking about at least one reconciliation bill, and I'd like to explain that for the layman. What is a reconciliation bill, and why is it a big deal?
BONJEAN: Yeah, a reconciliation bill is a process - it's basically an expedited process that Congress can use to get - to basically get their spending priorities through. And since Republicans are in charge now, and they have both the House and Senate, this takes only 50 votes to pass a budget reconciliation bill. They first need to pass a budget resolution, which sets the parameters. And then they're able to go, you know, and pass a bill based upon - or - you know what? - two bills or multiple bills based upon their priorities. President Biden and Democrats did this...
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BONJEAN: ...In the last administration through their own process.
INSKEEP: Yeah, absolutely. And you can put huge things in there. But as I understand, if you're going to go around the filibuster, it's limited as to what you can put in. It's financial matters, right? So Trump could put in his tax cuts, I guess. But here's my question. Can you also make some of the policy changes the president-elect is eager to do? He's talked about eliminating the Department of Education, for example, or changing rules for who he can fire.
BONJEAN: It also - it always has to revolve around fiscal issues. So if they can make the case that this is fiscally related, they can get around what's called the Byrd rule, which you just talked about.
INSKEEP: Which means they have to find some way to construe a policy change, that it's just about numbers - it's about money - then it's OK.
BONJEAN: That it's just about numbers. That's exactly correct.
INSKEEP: And who makes the judgment there, the decision?
BONJEAN: The Senate parliamentarian usually makes that judgment. And I've been through that. It's a very high-stakes scheme where you're literally waiting for the parliamentarian to make a rule on whether or not this can actually happen.
INSKEEP: I get the impression that Senate Republicans, Republican leaders would actually like the Senate parliamentarian to do a serious job here. They don't want to just do whatever Trump asks. Am I correct?
BONJEAN: Yeah, I think what they're looking for is - I mean, Senate Republicans are looking for - to get this done as quickly as possible. And they, of course, want to make it as easy for the parliamentarian to rule on any extraneous issues as fast as possible.
INSKEEP: OK. I also want to ask about the debt ceiling. Raising the debt ceiling seems to be - it seems that it will have to be part of this. Aren't there a number of Republicans who are very resistant to raising it unless there are also extraordinary cuts in spending?
BONJEAN: Yeah, listen. This package is going to likely include tax cuts, spending cuts, immigration, energy policy and more. And there's a big debate about whether or not we put in - they put in a debt ceiling increase because whether or not that could really pass the House. House Republicans, you know, there are several of those who would never vote for a debt ceiling increase. And there's an argument that it should be taken out of the bill and put it into the continuing resolution debate, funding the government. And that's much more of an appropriate place to have that conversation. So that's all playing out right now.
INSKEEP: Ron Bonjean, I want to ask you, as a longtime observer and participant in Washington, about another piece of news. This has now been confirmed. The former president and future president, the president-elect, had a phone call the other day with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito - called him up to chat. According to Alito, Trump was - a former law clerk of Alito has applied for a job in the administration and gave Alito as a reference, and Trump was calling up to check out the reference. And this, of course, is a president-elect who can expect to have many cases decided before the Supreme Court. What do you make of this?
BONJEAN: Well, look, you know, any time a reference is given, when you're an employer and you're checking out an employee, you're going to want to call that job reference. So that makes a lot of sense to Americans.
INSKEEP: OK.
BONJEAN: You know, of course it's unconventional when you're calling - you're the president-elect of the United States and you're calling the Supreme Court. And there are issues that the Supreme Court will be ruling on regarding a number of things that he is interested in. Now, Alito has said that they did not discuss those issues, and they discussed the personnel matter at hand. And this is just one of the many things we can expect from President-elect Trump. He thinks outside the box. He operates on his own bandwidth.
INSKEEP: But in this case, the bandwidth is calling up a Supreme Court justice and saying, I hear there's a guy you'd like me to hire. I wonder if I should do you this favor. That is an interesting call for a president to make to someone who's ruling on him or is going to be.
BONJEAN: Yeah, it's a very interesting - I can't speak to the exact call and who said what.
INSKEEP: Right.
BONJEAN: But the fact that the - the fact that Trump called Alito and to discuss an employee issue is super interesting. You know, I don't think the Supreme Court is up for haggling over rulings based upon whether or not Trump would hire an employee or not. I find that highly unlikely. But it just, you know, shows how unconventional Trump is.
INSKEEP: Ron...
BONJEAN: It's just another example here.
INSKEEP: Got it. Ron Bonjean, thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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