President-elect Trump pointed to a strategic benefit of the one-bill approach to budget reconciliation that he’s said he prefers during a closed-door meeting with Republican senators on Wednesday evening at the Capitol. 

By combining legislation relating to both the southern border crisis and taxes into one reconciliation bill, Trump suggested that one issue could potentially force some lawmakers to make a difficult decision. For example, if a Republican doesn’t support a piece of the tax component, they would also have to vote against the border provisions because they are in one measure. 

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With portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expiring this year, the party is looking to act quickly. But the tax debate in 2025 is expected to be more divided among Republicans than that regarding the border. In particular, there is some disagreement in the party on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which can benefit some states more than others and have been hit by some Republicans as inefficient. 

“If somebody, for example, in the House is balking because there’s not SALT in the tax agreement or some other provision they want, if that also means they’d be holding out and voting against the border, it might make it harder for them to do so,” Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., told Fox News Digital. “That’s a very valid point.”

While SALT was not posed as an example of this by Trump himself, it was mentioned by a GOP senator in a side conversation among other attendees as they went over the advantages of a one-bill approach, Hoeven said. 

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Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., speaks May 4, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Hoeven faces a defector from his own party and a lightly funded Democrat on Tuesday, Nov. 8, in his race for a third U.S. Senate term from North Dakota.  (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

A source familiar told Fox News that Republicans are preparing to go with Trump’s one-bill preference, but they are also keeping the potential for two bills, one on the border and another to address taxes, in their back pocket in the case of any significant obstacles. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Trump that if one bill is what he wanted, that is what they are going to try first, the source said. 

A number of senators have their own preferences for two separate reconciliation bills instead, and some made their cases to Trump during the meeting. However, the conference is set to move forward with Trump’s one-bill approach. 

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Thune was “adamant” about supporting Trump’s agenda as leader, one senator said. (Reuters)

Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal came up during the discussion following Trump’s remarks about each. Trump has recently said he wants U.S. to take back control of critical trade medium the Panama Canal, while also expressing interest in making Greenland and Canada part of the U.S.

Sources familiar told Fox News that Trump brought these up himself during the meeting, telling senators at one point that these countries “were screwing with” the U.S.

TRUMP, GOP SENATORS TO HUDDLE AT CAPITOL, WEIGH STRATEGY ON BUDGET, TAXES AND BORDER

Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks with media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa. (AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Several GOP senators took the opportunity to tell Trump that his comments on Canada were “transformative,” the sources said. 

The senators believe his approach to Canada is already managing to change the country’s “behavior” and could have even contributed to the recent resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the sources added. 

SAN FRANCISCO —  Four hours before he took the oath of office Wednesday to become San Francisco’s 46th mayor, Daniel Lurie started his day walking through the bleak confines of the Tenderloin district with the city police chief and passing out coffee to people at a homeless community center.

It was a deliberately symbolic move by Lurie, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune, who won office in November largely by appealing to disillusioned voters weary of the public drug use, brazen retail theft and sprawling homelessness that during the pandemic became commonplace in the Tenderloin and spilled into the downtown financial district.

In his inaugural speech shortly before noon in front of San Francisco City Hall, Lurie pledged to crack down on the street anarchy that has plagued some areas of the city in recent years, feeding a “doom loop” scenario endorsed by conservative pundits.

“This is where our comeback begins,” Lurie said to a crowd of thousands that included his wife, Becca Prowda, daughter Taya, 13, and son Sawyer, 10, along with outgoing Mayor London Breed and a host of local and statewide political figures.

“I’m asking all of you, every single one of you, to join me in reclaiming our place as the greatest city in the world with a new era of accountability, service and change,” Lurie said.

Daniel Lurie is sworn in as San Francisco’s 46th mayor.

(Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle)

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Lurie, a moderate Democrat who had never held elected office, entered the mayoral race as an underdog against Breed and three other City Hall veterans. In an election seen as a referendum on the city’s post-pandemic struggles with homelessness and street crime, Lurie pitched himself as a change agent who could lead San Francisco into an era of recovery.

His campaign gained momentum as he promised to end open-air drug markets and arrest fentanyl dealers, push homeless people into drug and mental health treatment and reinvigorate a downtown economy drained by the exodus of tech workers after COVID-19 shutdowns made remote work an easy option.

Lurie was able to spread his message broadly by drawing on personal wealth. He funneled nearly $9 million of his own money into his campaign, while his mother, Miriam Haas, widow of deceased Levi’s executive and heir Peter Haas, contributed an additional $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his election.

Lurie’s inaugural speech, though light on policy details, offered a glimpse into how he planned to accomplish the bold goals he laid out on the campaign trail.

“San Francisco has long been known for its values of tolerance and inclusion, but nothing about those values instructs us to allow nearly 8,000 people to experience homelessness in our city,” he said. “Widespread drug-dealing, public drug use and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security.”

At the top of his to-do list: introducing a package of ordinances declaring a fentanyl state of emergency. Lurie said he would ask the Board of Supervisors, an 11-member body that acts as the legislative branch for the city and county, to quickly approve the ordinances, directed at curbing use of the deadly opioid and allowing the city to “bypass the bureaucratic hurdles standing in the way of tackling this crisis.”

The board gained five new members in the November election, a turnover expected to bring a more moderate tone to a board that for years was seen as ultra-liberal and often tussled with Breed — also a moderate — over tough-on-crime policy proposals.

Lurie said he would work to embed more behavioral health specialists in first-responder units to address the overlapping crises of homelessness, addiction and untreated mental illness, and announced plans to open a 24/7 center as an alternative to jail for police to bring people in need of treatment and other services.

He also said he wants to expand a city program that provides funding and assistance for bus tickets and other transportation to send homeless people who aren’t from San Francisco back to their home communities.

And in the face of a projected $876-million budget deficit, Lurie promised “zero cuts” to sworn police officers, 911 operators, EMTs, firefighters and nurses on the front lines of public health emergencies.

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said he was encouraged by Lurie’s plans and his recognition of the need for “around-the-clock resources” not just for police, but also for city workers across departments working to solve San Francisco’s public safety and health challenges.

“The Police Department is 24/7 … but a lot of the departments that we rely upon to help solve some of these problems aren’t 24/7,” he said. “It’s not all about enforcement. It’s not all about policing.”

Scott said he would like to see Lurie continue recent efforts by Breed’s administration to more aggressively clear sprawling tent encampments that have fanned out across the city, as well as public health efforts credited for a sharp decline in drug overdose deaths in the city last year.

The chief medical examiner’s office recorded 586 fatal overdoses in San Francisco in the first 11 months of 2024 — a nearly 23% decrease, or 174 fewer deaths, compared with the first 11 months of 2023. San Francisco public health experts attributed the decline to the widespread availability of naloxone, a medication that can rapidly reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, as well as more emphasis on prescribing buprenorphine and methadone, medications that treat opioid addiction long-term.

On Tuesday, Breed’s last full day in office, her administration noted that crime rates had also fallen in 2024, with reports of car break-ins dropping 54%, property crime down 31% and violent crime down 14%.

Though San Francisco’s struggles have made national headlines in recent years, particularly in right-wing media promoted by President-elect Donald Trump, Lurie largely left national politics out of his messaging, nodding only once during his speech to the “great sense of fear and loss about the state of our country right now.”

“San Francisco must be a city where every individual feels safe, valued and empowered,” he said. “That means standing firm against discrimination and fighting for the dignity of all communities, no matter what comes our way.”

Lurie said the city is showing progress and maintained that “hope is alive and well in San Francisco.” But he warned that “lasting change doesn’t happen overnight.”

Still, “if we are consistent, if we have vision, if we aren’t afraid to make tough decisions,” he said, “San Francisco will rise to new heights.”