Despite House Republicans' slim majority, Rep. Tom Emmer, the majority whip, told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that he will implement President-elect Donald Trump's agenda.
"We're going to get the Trump agenda put in place. Donald Trump got a mandate on Nov. 5," the Minnesota Republican said.
"The public expects us to deal with the excessive spending, the debt, the deficit that has driven double-digit inflation at the beginning of the Biden term. They've asked Donald Trump to seal the southern border, and they want peace and stability around the globe."
Emmer also said he is not concerned by the dilemma over the best strategy to achieve certain legislative goals, whether it be in one bill or more than that.
"That's not a concern to me once we make the decision. Is it going to be one? Is it going to be two? Doesn't matter," he said.
"The whip's job is to make sure that we execute once that decision has been made, and I love people who tell us that we can't do something. When we didn't have the White House and we didn't have the Senate, we did things that Republican majorities had never been able to do in the previous 10 to 15 years."
Asked about the outright refusal of GOP hardliners to consider raising the debt ceiling, Emmer said that doesn't mean their opposition is "not going to change under the right circumstances."
"The issue that Republicans have had — and I think that Donald Trump has — is the debt ceiling is a false number. The bottom line is, you got to get your spending under control, and you got to have a plan to pay off the debt.
"So as long as we're doing that, don't underestimate what the House Republicans can do," he said.
Emmer also talked about the cost to the federal government of the California wildfires.
"Right now, we don't know what's going to be needed. We know it's significant," he said.
"What we do know is that Congress in December ... passed the American Relief Act, which provided billions of dollars to FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] to not only deal with ... hurricanes Milton and Helene, but also for situations such as this — although no one could predict what's happening right now in LA."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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