Johnson seeks Trump agenda 2.0 as GOP anxiety grows over midterms

(CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson is actively working to unite his conference behind another Republican-only policy bill ahead of the midterms, with members clamoring for more wins and eager not waste what they fear could be the waning days of their majority.

Despite facing one of the smallest House margins in history, Johnson has outlined an extraordinarily aggressive legislative plan for 2026 that, if successful, Republicans believe could help preserve their fragile hold on the chamber next year — and potentially protect the speaker’s own political survival. And the Louisiana Republican is moving quickly, telling CNN he held a “productive” meeting last week with key chairmen and has spoken with Senate GOP Leader John Thune in recent days.

“We want to use all the tools that we have in the arsenal. And I’m very bullish, very optimistic. I think we can do something,” he said last week, discussing the prospect of Republicans passing a party-line package under a process known as reconciliation.

Johnson has instructed chairmen to come up with a menu of ideas they’d like to see in another GOP economic bill. But whether the bill is focused on health care, tax policy or further deficit reduction is still not clear. And it will be difficult for Johnson to start cobbling together a new bill when he is still constantly quelling internal fights about GOP priorities on the floor and begging members to show up for votes with no room to spare in their narrow margin. Last week alone, GOP leaders lost a floor vote they didn’t even realize was in trouble and were forced to pull several other measures from their agenda.

Johnson’s agenda 2.0 plan is a long-shot effort that comes with no shortage of potential downsides for him and for the party. Trying and failing — like Republicans did with their Obamacare repeal effort in 2017 ahead of Trump’s last midterm — could highlight GOP ineptitude just months before the election. And conservatives are already telegraphing they want to see significant cuts to a federal budget that moderates are struggling to defend on the campaign trail.

“You never know ‘til you try,” Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy said. “If you spend half your time in Congress and half your time running … that’s stupid.”

Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio is another fiscal hawk with big dreams of enacting across-government cuts in the style of the Department of Government Efficiency in the next bill. But he also offered a reality check: “We barely had the votes to defund NPR. I don’t know how aggressively we’ll be able to reform some of the things.”

Many Republicans agree that choosing not to use a legislative tool that allows them to pass conservative bills with just their own party’s votes would be a major waste in a GOP-controlled Congress. But that is where the agreement ends.

GOP lawmakers acknowledge it will be much more difficult to deliver another package after Congress passed Trump’s tax break, spending cuts and immigration bill last year. To start, there is no clear idea of what the bill would include. One major faction of House Republicans, known as the Republican Study Committee, is pushing for housing policies and an expansion of health care savings, which they say would also cut $1 trillion from the federal deficit. They even have a name: “Making the American Dream Affordable Again.”

“I think we have some really good proposals that leadership is looking at, that’s in line with what the president wants to do, some creative ideas,” the group’s chairman, Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, told CNN, saying the ideas have vast support among the American people, not just GOP voters. “I think we’re going to get some Democrats eventually to say, yeah, those are good ideas. … There’s a lot of legislative proposals that truly are 80-20 issues.”

Other conservatives are pushing their Senate colleagues to relitigate a series of messy fights they already lost on pieces of the first bill that were deemed out of compliance with strict Senate rules, such as immigration policy.

‘It creates a very polarized environment’

And there isn’t even consensus on whether Johnson should attempt another party-line push at all.

Multiple centrist Republicans told CNN they’re more interested in bipartisan wins and have told the speaker directly. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said he would rather see a bipartisan immigration bill or a debt commission, adding: “I just think it creates a very polarized environment. I think it’s bad to lean on it.”

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey said he’d rather the GOP sit down and “really regroup,” and then focus on issues like health care that he thinks the party has been ignoring.

“I pray to God we don’t do something stupid,” Van Drew said when asked about a possible second Trump agenda bill. “I don’t give a damn how many reconciliation bills you do unless it’s going to have a health care component to it.”

House GOP leaders are aware of the hurdles. But they are also feeling immense pressure from many in their conference, who have been frustrated by months of slow legislating, including a lengthy shutdown that kept members out of town for 43 days. GOP leaders are also driven to shield the president from being perceived as a lame duck. Many are also increasingly worried about their party’s fate in the November elections, as voters warn that Trump isn’t doing enough to shore up the economy.

Still, one top Republican, Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, acknowledged that fears over losing the House majority isn’t enough to unite the conference behind a bill.

“You still have to get votes. We can’t just deem it as passed. So, if everybody comes along and says, ‘We agree with what’s being put in the bill,’ that would be awesome,” Hern said.

Hern said the biggest concern for leadership will be: “Do we have enough in there that satisfies everybody?”

And this time, Johnson is dealing with a House margin that will require perfect unity within his famously unruly conference. The sudden death of one colleague and the abrupt resignation of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have left the speaker with almost no room to maneuver — and a special election in Texas is expected to send another Democrat to the House in just two weeks.

There is also no guarantee that any House effort would have a future in the Senate, where Thune has had to contend with his own unpredictability among his conference. That includes Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who is now fully entrenched in her reelection fight in a Democratic-leaning state, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who was a very hard-fought yes vote for Thune the first time around.

There are also concerns that the GOP hasn’t yet done a good enough job of selling the bill it passed last year. There is fear among GOP lawmakers that the signature policy bill of Trump’s second term, which the president dubbed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” has been struggling to land with voters. Johnson and his leadership team have been repeatedly stressing to their members that they need to better sell the package back home.

Voters, they argue, are still understanding the impact of the massive piece of legislation that included broad tax cuts for Americans as well as big changes to tighten access to Medicaid and food stamps that conservatives cheered. The bill largely extended tax cuts Trump passed in his first term — and showing voters the benefit of not losing the tax breaks has been harder than expected to campaign on, some have acknowledged.

Republicans who are facing tough reelection fights are among the most vocal in pushing for another big Trump package, arguing it would help them to expand their list of legislative wins.

“I think maybe it would relieve some of President Trump’s frustration with the filibuster and demonstrate we can actually get things done,” said Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who is in the fight of his political life in a three-way primary in Texas.

The story headline has been updated.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.