House Majority Leader Steve Scalise held a dinner Monday night with Republican committee chairs and senior White House officials to discuss the GOP legislative agenda ahead of the midterms, according to five people granted anonymity to share details of the private event.
White House deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs James Blair was in attendance at the dinner, held at a Capitol Hill restaurant, alongside the administration’s legislative affairs director James Braid and top House liaison, Jeff Freeland, according to the people.
Blair and White House officials discussed key affordability policy areas they feel are especially salient in a midterm election year, including housing. They also raised health care and economic issues — topics Trump plans to hit on in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
But notably, the people with knowledge of the meeting said the group did not discuss pursuing these priorities through another party-line budget reconciliation package.
Scalise said in an interview Tuesday afternoon he organized the dinner to coordinate with the White House and invited the chairs to share details of the legislation they plan to work on for the rest of the year.
White House officials also gave a rough overview of what to expect from Trump’s State of the Union speech, Scalise continued.
Blair and other White House representatives said the president will laud American greatness ahead of the country’s upcoming 250th birthday, according to Scalise. Trump will also talk about “the mess he inherited from Biden,” including high inflation and rampant illegal border crossings.
Trump will give examples of how he’s working with his Republican majority in Congress to fix a lot of those problems, but “also make clear that the work’s not done,” Scalise said.
He added that Trump’s speech also will preview “what we need to do in the next few months” ahead of the midterms.
