Trump Demands a $350 Billion 'Recon 3.0.' Senate Republicans Balk
Hours after signing a $70 billion immigration funding law, the president demanded a third party-line megabill carrying $350 billion for the Pentagon and his election overhaul. McConnell, Collins and Thune are not buying it.
President Donald Trump wants Congress to pass a third filibuster-proof megabill, $350 billion for the Pentagon plus his stalled election overhaul, and he wants it now. The Republicans who would have to deliver it spent the week explaining, in increasingly plain language, why that is unlikely to happen.
"I think it's safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill, so it's really not an option," Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said at a Senate Appropriations hearing this week, cautioning Air Force Secretary Troy Meink against counting on the process for funding.
Trump issued the demand Wednesday night, June 10, on Truth Social, hours after signing Republicans' second reconciliation law of this Congress: a $70 billion package funding immigration enforcement through the rest of his presidency.
"I am hereby calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill (Recon 3.0) - which, at the request of our Great Department of War - will include THE SAVE AMERICA ACT as well. No games, no delays, and no weak compromises! Do this ASAP."
President Donald Trump, on Truth Social
He called the package a GENERATIONAL Investment in our Military, even bigger than President Reagan's
and said it is the only path to the full $1.5 trillion military budget he has requested for fiscal year 2027.
The two halves of the demand face different problems. A week of Republican reactions, compressed:
| What Trump wants in Recon 3.0 | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| $350 billion in additional Pentagon funding via reconciliation | Senior appropriators, including Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, object to routing defense money around the normal appropriations process |
| The SAVE America Act: voter ID, proof of citizenship to register, a ban on mail-in ballots | Stalled in the Senate, and election rules are unlikely to survive reconciliation's requirement that provisions be budgetary |
| Passage "ASAP" | A shrinking legislative calendar before the November midterms, and a Senate leader who says the votes are not yet there |
Reconciliation lets a party pass budget legislation on simple majorities, shielded from the filibuster. The catch, which several Republicans keep pointing at, is that the Senate's rules confine the process to provisions with direct budget effects, a bar an election-law package was never designed to clear. The SAVE America Act also bundles in measures barring transgender athletes from women's sports and restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth, and the bill lacks the Republican support it would need to pass the Senate even on its own.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota did not close the door, but he did not hold it open either. "You've got to have something that you can win on," he said. "And you've heard some of our folks already express their views on another reconciliation bill." Collins was more direct: "Reconciliation is not the best approach," she said, adding, "It would be very difficult to get the reconciliation bill approved."
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana offered the bleakest forecast of the week. "I think it's a very, very long shot that anything passes between now and the midterms," he said. "It gives me heartburn to say that, but I think that's political reality."
The House is somewhat warmer. Speaker Mike Johnson has voiced confidence that his chamber will clear a third budget bill by the August recess, and discussions on a package were underway before Trump's public endorsement. Even there, though, the conference is unsettled. "I haven't quite heard enough policy proposals that lead me to think it's going to gel, but I'm certainly open-minded," Rep. Nick Langworthy of New York told Fox News Digital.
Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, a Republican-turned-independent who voted against the immigration funding measure, said the deeper problem is the habit itself. "We have now gotten to this habit of one party takes power, they do reconciliation bills and the other party does it, and this cycle hasn't been good," he said. "It's one of the things that fed the cycles of dysfunction that we have around here."
The ledger so far this Congress: two reconciliation laws signed, an appropriations process largely bypassed, and a president demanding a third party-line bill while his own Senate appropriators ask him to use the regular one. Whether House Republicans even produce a draft of Recon 3.0 by the August recess will show which side of that argument is winning.
