John Thune warns GOP rank and file as mission creep threatens to blow up MAGA plan

Republicans now plan to do another round of reconciliation to pass parts of their agenda Democrats oppose — but already, cracks are starting to show in the strategy before they even begin.

In conversation with Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) warned that the bill should be “as narrow and focused as possible” on securing new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, as opposed to several other priorities rank and file Republicans want included. “The other things implicate other committees and create jurisdictional challenges and germaneness issues on the floor,” said Thune.

Budget reconciliation allows the governing party to pass budget bills without being subject to a filibuster in the Senate — but there are heavy restrictions on its use under Senate rules, including that anything in the bill must be predominantly for budgetary purposes.

For weeks, the Department of Homeland Security has been shut down in a standoff as Democrats demand oversight and operational reforms to ICE and Border Patrol, following the Trump administration's federal invasions of cities that triggered a wave of protests, snatchups of immigrants with little to no due process, and multiple deaths.

Yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) finally caved and agreed to the Senate's bipartisan arrangement where everything except immigration enforcement is funded in DHS, so Republicans can try to pass ICE and Border Patrol funding on a party-line reconciliation basis.

The issue, noted Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman, is that "This will be one of the massive challenges of this spring — the desire from Thune/WH to keep reconciliation tightly focused on ICE/CBP when the rank and file is going to want SAVE, budget cuts, defense money, extend on the funding ban of Planned Parenthood, etc etc etc."

Many of those provisions will not only cause added friction and disputes among Republicans, but could be disallowed under budget rules, particularly efforts to pass the SAVE Act voter restrictions, according to the reporting.