So I think they'll kind of try and move forward with that now that they hold control, they'll hold control of the Senate.
And tax cuts will be another big thing to watch out for.
And that energy regulation.
So I think they're going to try and cut back on some of that.
So those are kind of the big things to watch right now.
And you mentioned Republicans talking with Trump administration officials.
What is the relationship like between Speaker Johnson and President Trump?
We know that Speaker Johnson flew from his home district to be at Mar-a-Lago in time for that Donald Trump victory speech late on Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning.
What is the relationship like between the two men right now?
So we saw all the leadership fly down there and Trump's comments following his win were very supportive of Mike Johnson.
He's acknowledged multiple times it's been kind of difficult waters for Mike Johnson to navigate given the slim majority.
But right now, it kind of seems like he's fully standing behind him, which should help him in the leadership race.
Julie Grace Bruthke is Capitol Hill reporter at Axius.
You can follow her on X at JulieGraceB.
And we always appreciate your time on the Washington Journal.
Thank you for having me.
We're going to focus for a minute here on the Senate and the 119th Congress with Al Weaver of the Hill staff writer there.
We heard from Mitch McConnell yesterday.
Right now, Al Weaver, it stands at at least a majority of 52 seats for Republicans.
Could creep up as high as 53, 54, maybe even 55.
What's the difference in the 119th Congress of a 52-seat Republican majority compared to a 55-seat majority?
It's massive, and especially for whoever ends up being the majority leader, it's going to be, and for Trump, it's going to be huge as far as getting their nominees through.
It gives you that much more of a buffer between what you have right now with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski kind of being as those leading moderates and gives you a lot more wiggle room, a little more room to play with as you would.
And when it comes to trying to get your, you know, depending on who Trump wants to nominate for Secretary of State or for Attorney General and some of these other positions, or RFK Jr., for example, with HHS or something like that.
So it's really big as far as Trump and getting those nominees through.
And the other thing is going to be, especially if they get full control of Congress, is whether they can move through a massive reconciliation package and how easily they're able to do that, how much push and pull they're going to have, and then how large a tax package, because the Jobs and Tax Cuts bill from 2017, the tax cut bill that Trump and Paul Ryan ushered through, that expires by the end of the year.
They have to redo that.
And that's top of the mind of Republicans in both chambers.
You mentioned leadership, the clip from Mitch McConnell there.
He will not be the Republican majority leader in the 119th Congress.
He's stepping down.
But your story in The Hill today, the headline, battle to replace McConnell as Senate GOP leader heats up in the final sprint.
Just remind viewers where we are on who will succeed Mitch McConnell.
Yeah, well, there's three people at the moment running.
It seems unlikely that anyone else will get to get in.
But right now, the leaders are John Thune, the Senate Minority Whip right now, and John Cornyn, the former whip, top ally of McConnell.
And they're also joined by Rick Scott, who, though, while it's not really considered much of a competitor per se, this thing with those secret ballots, he's probably not going to get to a second ballot.
It's really between Thune and Cornyn.
Members like both of them.
They like both of them a lot.
There's some difference, some key differences between how they would probably manage the job.
But it's going to be interesting.
That comes down next Wednesday, the vote.
Tuesday night, they have a forum on the Hill.
And we're going to see how this goes.
I think some people mostly give Thune kind of a slight edge, but no one's counting on Cornyn.
We know that he's a strong fundraiser.
He's willing to do a lot for the team, and that he's been out there doing it for a long time and has a lot of experience.
So it's going to be interesting to see.
What is John Thune and John Cornyn's relationships with Donald Trump and Trump officials?
How could that impact what happens in the 119th Congress?
It's one of those things where neither of them for a while had the greatest relationship with the former president, but both have kind of sought to repair it over the course of the year.
One of the bigger blemishes on Thune is that he was out supporting Tim Scott during the presidential campaign.
Scott's one of his bigger allies.
They worked together on tax reform.
And Cornyn came up before him and said he was going to support the former president.
And so that's one thing.
But Thun has really gone out.
He's attracted some of Trump's bigger allies on Capitol Hill.
Steve Daines, the NRSC chair, is privately supporting him, has told members as such.
And Mark Wayne Mullen's another one.
He has someone who has Trump's ear a lot.
So he's gone through that.
They're working through that.
He's met with them.
He's tried to assuage that relationship.
Cornyn said the same thing.
He met with him this past month at Raleigh, Nevada, when Trump swung through Texas.
So they both have realized that there is work to do on that end because Trump could either help them or sink them entirely.
Donald Trump's political capital perhaps at an all-time high right now.
What would happen in a scenario in which Donald Trump comes out for a Rick Scott, somebody that he clearly has a long-established relationship, and Rick Scott makes no bones that he's close to Donald Trump?
Obviously, I would throw a monkey wrench into things, but I think at this point that is unlikely to happen.
I think all sides realize that, unlike most elections, this is a very the constituency of 52, maybe 53 people at this point.
That's who's going to matter at this point.
I don't think Rick Scott can get more than 15 dozen to 15 votes.
I don't think that's likely feasible.
So I do think this is going to come down to Thune and Cornyn.
It remains to be seen whether Trump weighs in on this.
And it's anyone's ballgame at the moment.
What should we know about the new members coming to the Senate, starting first on the Republican side, the new members who get a vote on who will be the leader of the party in the 119th Congress?
Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of them.
And that's one reason why it's very good for Thune to have Daines in his corner, because Daines is someone who recruited a lot of these people.
He went out and recruited Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania if he ends up winning.
When he went out and recruited Sam Brown in Nevada, if he ends up emerging victorious, seems unlikely probably at this point, but it's still really close.
Those things really matter in this.
You have other ones who have known they're going to be here for a while, such as Jim Banks from Indiana, the congressman who's always seen this kind of a ladder climber in a good way, you know, and he wanted to be in leadership in the House side, didn't work out.
Congrats, you get a Senate job now.
So the Daines thing cannot be understated.
I think that's a very shrewd move on Thune's part, especially because Daines also has Trump's ear.
These days after the election, it's a lot of reflecting on what went right, what went wrong.
A lot of things went right for Senate Republicans this cycle.
They had a great map this cycle, but already at 52 could be 53, 54 seats in the next Congress.
In the days after the 2022 cycle, there was a lot of thoughts that Republicans should have done better in the Senate.
Where was that red wave that was supposed to emerge?
What was different this cycle?
One of the criticisms last cycle was candidate recruitment.
Was it?
We're going to leave this, but you can finish watching online at c-span.org as we take you to a series of discussions on education policy and the impact of the 2024 election.
Let me get my panel up here now.
We are going to talk about putting the pop back in parent power because everything I just heard from our previous panel is about putting people to work and we know that parents are enormous force.