Lindsey Graham undercuts Mike Johnson with 'back-channeling' to GOP hardliners: report

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is privately going behind House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to advise GOP hardliners on how the Senate wants to pass President Donald Trump's priorities — contrary to how Johnson and Trump himself have advocated, Politico reported on Monday.

Graham, according to the report, "has been back-channeling with some members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus — picking their brains and giving them advice on trillions of dollars in overall spending cuts — as he prepares in his role as Budget Committee chair to pave the way for a party-line border, energy and defense bill."

Meanwhile, one member reports the Freedom Caucus "has Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) taking an informal lead in talking with senators including Graham."

The fundamental issue is whether to pass a proposal like Graham's as one budget bill, and then do a second budget bill on tax cuts, which is the Senate's preferred strategy to increase the odds at least one of these priorities can pass; or to do everything in a single bill, which is the preferred strategy of Johnson, who wants to use the border provisions as leverage to make the Freedom Caucus compromise.

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Republicans have largely assumed throughout the process that they will have to pass all of this with GOP votes alone, which is particularly difficult in the House where Johnson has one of the narrowest majorities in modern history.

Despite Trump weighing in in support of Johnson's approach for one "big, beautiful bill," House and Senate Republicans remain at odds.

Ultimately, the report continued, "Rubber could meet the road for that plan this month in the House Budget Committee, where Graham’s counterpart — panel Chair Jodey Arrington of Texas — is tasked with writing and sending to the floor a fiscal blueprint for the one-bill effort. It’s a first, high-stakes test of whether Johnson will end up getting the unity he needs to execute his plan." For his part, Graham "hasn’t publicly said when he will move forward in committee with his own budget blueprint — the necessary first step in the party-line reconciliation process."