White House eyeing security and SAVE Act components in third reconciliation bill

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has signaled interest in advancing a third reconciliation bill through the lower chamber, although Senate Republicans appear less certain that one will come together. Republicans passed tax cuts through reconciliation, alongside funding for border security and defense in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, and are still working on a second reconciliation bill through the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) acknowledged on Wednesday that the upper chamber is now eyeing a third reconciliation bill that some conservatives at one point worried would not materialize.

“There is talk now, because we have a third bullet available to us, a third legislative vehicle of what a Reconciliation 3.0 might look like,” Thune said on the Hugh Hewitt Show. “And you know, the House is going through that process. We are, too, having conversations about timing and what it might include, et cetera.”

Some conservatives had initially wanted the second reconciliation bill to include elements of the SAVE America Act that could potentially survive the complex procedural rules in the Senate that dictate what can pass via the filibuster-skipping process, but the White House ultimately backed Senate leadership in keeping the second reconciliation bill focused more narrowly on funding for the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service. The $1 billion in proposed Secret Service spending has drawn criticism from some Republicans, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), because a portion of it would go toward building security features for the White House ballroom.

Braid disputed the suggestion that Secret Service funding will be allocated to Trump’s ballroom, a project that polls show is unpopular. Instead, he argued the funding is to secure the White House complex more broadly.

“This is a complex that for decades has needed security infrastructure upgrades,” he said.

A third reconciliation bill could also include parts of the SAVE America Act, which would impose a proof-of-citizenship requirement for voter registration and a voter ID requirement at the ballot box. The bill passed the House earlier this year but stalled in the Senate because the GOP’s 53-seat majority can’t overcome the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster.

Braid said the White House continues to push Republican senators to consider abandoning the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act and other GOP priorities, arguing Democrats would scrap the filibuster themselves were they in control of the Senate.

“If we’re not successful in doing that, I think we have a great chance of getting at least a down payment on the SAVE Act in Reconciliation 3.0, and that’s certainly something that would be in the conversation for that future legislative effort,” he said. 

The third reconciliation bill could also include some anti-fraud measures that build off the early successes of Vice President JD Vance’s task force.

“I think that the vice president’s fraud task force is doing incredible work, and we’re seeing a lot of ways in which the American social state can be reformed, that there are problems with American taxpayer dollars getting on target,” Braid said. “We think that there’s an opportunity for a broadly unifying fraud [effort] … ensuring taxpayer dollars are going to the appropriate recipients.

“I think we’ve got a great opportunity to work on Recon 3, but of course, we’re laser-focused on Recon 2,” he said. “I think a lot of people have already looked past this one. I can tell you from having done this with experience that there’s no such thing as a simple reconciliation bill. So we’ve got a lot of ball left to play on Recon 2.0.”