Trump brings wildfire relief into talks on border, energy and tax bill

President Trump discussed how wildfire relief funding could help ease negotiations for a massive border, energy and tax bill expected to be passed by Congress, following a meeting with Republican leaders at the White House on Tuesday.

Trump, 78, emerged after sitting down with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders for hours to announce the “one big, beautiful” bill was being fast-tracked in Congress.

“I think we have a good situation now it’s been, in some ways, made simpler by Los Angeles because they’re going to need a lot of money, and generally speaking, I think you’ll find that a lot of Democrats are going to be asking for help,” the president told reporters.

“So I think maybe that makes it more one-sided,” he continued, adding that he was traveling to visit California’s fire-ravaged regions in the coming days after first heading to hurricane-hit areas in North Carolina.

“I’m not a fan of Gavin Newsom, and I don’t trust that he would use funding in the most effective way,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) told The Post earlier on Tuesday, adding that he was committed to just one bill.

“Is he going to take the funding, and, I don’t know, build a dam to save the salamanders, or is he going to use it so water actually comes out of the fire hydrants?”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said that the lower chamber is hoping to move a budget resolution in February to kickstart the reconciliation process, which Republicans need to wrangle their marquee resolution through the Senate.

Scalise believes the GOP can get its immense legislative package passed on the floor by the Easter holiday recess.

“We’re moving forward with one bill,” he affirmed, saying it will potentially include a hike to the nation’s debt ceiling as well as reforms Trump discussed on the 2024 campaign trail — including the elimination of taxes on tips.

Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), on the other hand, did not commit to passing a single bill jammed full of the proposals as opposed to front-loading border and energy items in the first measure while waiting on lengthier tax revisions to be put up for a vote later this year.

“Party unity is the consensus on the reconciliation strategy,” he told reporters upon returning to Capitol Hill.

Despite the seemingly mixed signals from GOP leaders in the two chambers, Johnson stressed that Republicans largely have a game plan in place.

“We got a plan pretty well formulated now and I am not going to tell all you the details of it yet, because that’s not how it works. The party is working in unison,” Johnson told reporters, per Fox News.

The speaker has gone back and forth on whether the bill will also include an extension of the federal government’s borrowing authority, which currently sits at $36 trillion and will default without any legislative remedies by March 14.

While supported by some Democrats, the debt ceiling extension could be tucked in after the added sweetener of wildfire aid, sources familiar with the White House talks told Politico.

Outgoing Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had warned the House speaker of the looming fiscal cliff in a letter last week.

The debt ceiling had been suspended from 2023 until the start of the month. However, due to the complexities of government spending, there is not expected to be a risk of default for several months.

Trump has suggested that there is a deadline of around June to address the debt limit, which restricts the government’s borrowing authority.