“It’s going to be, I think, a challenge to find consensus on any path forward on the tariffs, on the legislative side,” Johnson told reporters. “And so that is why, I think, you see so much of the attention on the executive side, the executive branch, and what they’re doing and how they’re reacting to the ruling,” News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
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That applies to enacting Trump’s tariffs as part of any second party-line megabill passed through the budget reconciliation process, an idea that some Republicans publicly floated in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court decision.
“I’m not sure it has much to do with reconciliation,” Johnson said.
Trump recently imposed 15 percent global tariffs, which will expire after 150 days. At that point, Congress would have to extend them — but senior Republicans privately say they won’t have the support to do so, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of the conversations.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the Republicans who voted earlier this month to overturn Trump’s Canada tariffs, argued that “Trump is putting a ball and chain” on the GOP ahead of the midterms. “I hate seeing it.”
Bacon predicted Trump’s new levies will ultimately “fail in the courts.”
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, vowed Monday they would block an extension later this year — and given that an extension would be subject to a 60-vote threshold, this is something they would be able to achieve.
Johnson also on Monday batted down the notion that the administration should refund the money from the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court — something Democrats are also pledging to push, including in new legislation.
“The White House is going to sort that out, and we have to give them the time and space to do it,” he said. “This is an unprecedented event, of course, so there’s no playbook to follow. I think they’ve got good arguments on their side, and we’ll see how it shakes out. That’s not something that really involves the House at this point.”
