In 'the weave': A legislative agenda for Trump's final years

WASHINGTON — Hidden within President Donald Trump’s midterms campaign sales pitch is what amounts to a legislative agenda for his final two years in office, priorities that almost certainly would be met with opposition if Democrats win the majority of one or both chambers of Congress.

Trump spent the months leading up to the election cycle’s homestretch pushing Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. to bring the “SAVE America Act” to the floor. Trump has vowed to pass that package of GOP-crafted elections changes at a number of campaign stops, but while delivering his midterm pitch — his self-described “weave” speaking style — he also has promised loyal crowds that a Republican-run House and Senate would send him several other big-ticket items.

The legislative to-do list often has been relegated to the end of his midterm rallies, several of which have approached two hours in length. That was the case Friday at a rally in Dalton, Ga., where polls suggest Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is in the driver’s seat against GOP Rep. Mike Collins.

“So, in conclusion, if you elect a Republican House and Republican Senate on November 3rd, you get $5,000,” he said of his proposed payments to all U.S. adult citizens after speaking for more than 90 minutes at a late-afternoon airport hangar rally he admitted was “hot as hell.”

“If we lose, you get absolutely nothing because the Democrat policies cannot get you there. They can’t even if they wanted to, never,” he added. “So, if you lose, you get nothing.”

Despite some GOP lawmakers having bristled at those so-called “Trump dividends” since he first mentioned them at a midterms convention last month in Dallas, he has told rally crowds that a Republican-run Congress would allocate $1 trillion for the payouts quickly following the Nov. 3 elections.

And while any tax-related legislation typically is a heavy lift for Congress, Trump has been promising rallygoers that keeping both chambers under Republican control would mean the slew of tax cuts in the party’s 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would be here to stay.

“We will make all Trump tax cuts permanent, including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors,” he said Friday to applause.

Also on his tax to-do list is the estate tax, which he long has called “unfair.”

“We gotta make them permanent because they (Democrats) could change them. They wanna change them,” he said Saturday in Highland Heights, Ky.

Meantime, the “SAVE” bill, which would seek to block individuals in the U.S. illegally from voting by mandating proof of citizenship, is not the lone immigration bill Trump has put on his final years agenda.

He has plugged his envisioned “No Invasion of Our Country Act” multiple times on the stump. He first proposed such a measure at the Dallas convention, saying it would codify into law his second administration’s aggressive anti-immigration measures. Trump told the north Kentucky crowd that the bill, which has not been crafted, would be aimed at “prohibiting any future president from ever opening our borders to illegal immigrants again.”

Rounding out the list are several pieces of legislation long promised by Trump that have never quite taken shape. He uses each rally to vow to present and sign — after more than a decade as a professional politician — a sweeping health care overhaul bill. There’s his pledge to permanently end “no-cash bail” and codify into law his executive orders aimed at blocking men from playing in women’s sports and a measure to ensure there is “no transgender mutilation of your children.”

Senate week

Trump was scheduled to spend this week focused on competitive Senate races, with a Monday night rally in Kansas and others planned in North Carolina (Tuesday), South Carolina (Wednesday), Iowa (Thursday), Georgia (Saturday) and Michigan (Sunday). He also is due in Florida on Friday afternoon to campaign for Rep. Byron Donalds, the GOP nominee for governor, against Democrat David Jolly, a former GOP House member.

And his various political fundraising groups reportedly were preparing to dump millions into close races. But one GOP strategist, Texas-based Matt Mackowiak, said that potential cash infusion would have been more helpful months ago.

“It’s far too late for that,” he wrote on X. “Needed to start Labor Day at latest.”

What’s more, Trump spends ample time at his rallies talking about his pet projects around Washington, D.C., typically to tepid applause. He also dismisses voters’ concerns about the cost of living, calling the term “affordability” a Democratic-created sham.

House Democratic Conference Chairman Pete Aguilar, during a Sept. 15 Capitol press conference before the chamber departed for a midterms recess, said Trump’s and Republicans’ “only real accomplishment” over the last year-and-a-half was “giving billionaires a tax break and cutting health care and food assistance for American families.”

“Since Trump and Republicans came into office, people across the country have been forced to make financial trade offs. Wages haven’t kept pace with inflation,” he told reporters. “Democrats are offering real solutions. We’ll extend the (Affordable Care Act) tax credits. We’ll reverse Trump’s Medicaid cuts and undo his costly tariffs. We’ll hold this administration accountable for its corruption.

“And that’s just the beginning. Democrats are on a path to take back the majority,” the Californian said of the House. “And when we do, unlike Republicans, we’ll fulfill our promise of bringing down costs.”

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