Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in an interview Sunday that Republicans should “be working with” President-elect Trump “to try and achieve his objectives.”
“As we record this, the Republican majority in the 119th Congress looks like it’ll be about the same size as it is in the current Congress — 222, maybe 221 — but … in the same space,” NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt said on “The Hill Sunday.”
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“Narrow majorities make for hard work,” Stirewalt continued. “What do you tell your fellow Republicans about navigating these spaces?”
“Well, first of all, I tell them, you have your majority because of President Trump,” Cole said. “Look, he’s won the popular vote … for the first time in 20 years any Republican’s been able to do that. And so, we ought to be working with him to try and achieve his objectives.”
Republicans will have control of both the House and Senate next year, as well as the presidency. The election results mirror those of around four years ago in which the party that won the presidency, the Democrats, also won the House and Senate.
“I think it will be a little bit different this Congress, simply because we’ve got a little bit of discipline,” Cole said in his NewsNation interview. “You know, President Trump is not shy about expressing his opinions. I think all of my members have a very healthy respect for him.”
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The Republicans’ win in the House this year is a victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has led the House GOP through tumultuous times for a little more than a year. Johnson has overseen rough patches for the GOP conference in the lower chamber, including the period following former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) ouster and fierce debates over foreign aid.
Trump’s return to the White House, as well as having a friendlier neighbor in a GOP-controlled Senate, may make things easier for House Republicans, who have recently been dealing with Democrats leading the Senate and President Biden.