President Trump expressed confidence that Democrats will help Republicans extend his 2017-era tax cuts, despite the minority party showing no interest in helping with the president’s agenda.
The president also suggested Democrats could help raise the debt limit after he previously called on Republicans to not allow them to use the debt limit, which will need to be increased by about midyear, as a leverage point.
“I can’t imagine the Democrats don’t want to take care of the debt ceiling because that could be an explosion, the likes of which we’ve never seen. And I just don’t think that’s going to happen,” Trump told Fox News’ Bret Baier.
“I think we it’s very important that we do the tax plan, and I can’t see the Democrats giving people the largest tax increase in history,” Trump added. “So, we have to extend it, and I think make it better and make it even more productive.”
Trump last month also said he’s working with Democrats on extending and building off of his tax cuts.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) signaled on Monday that House Republicans would try to make the debt limit part of their budget resolution and pass it on party lines without the help of Democrats, which would be a different plan than Trump suggested in his comments to Baier.
Republicans are pushing to utilize the budget reconciliation process, which would allow the party to work around Democratic opposition in the Senate but requires near-unanimity in the two conferences, since Democrats have shown no appetite to help pass Trump’s priorities like the 2017 tax cuts, border funding and energy policy.
Johnson, who was with Trump at the Super Bowl on Sunday, also said on Monday that the House could “maybe” advance the budget resolution by the end of this week.
Meanwhile, Senators, led by Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), are looking to advance a competing plan.
Trump said he believes Republicans will get to an agreement when pressed by Baier if he thinks the process to pass his agenda doesn’t matter. He also railed against the fact that Republicans have to raise the debt limit this year.
“We have a very dangerous thing that was given to us, unfortunately and very foolishly, called debt ceiling,” Trump said. “We shouldn’t have had it. It shouldn’t have been ours. It should have been theirs, but somebody made a bad mistake, a stupid mistake, actually, and we inherited it.”
Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks contributed reporting.
