House and Senate Republicans have been working for months on a sweeping piece of legislation addressing a litany of President Donald Trump’s agenda items.

Such a bill is possible via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the party controlling Congress and the White House to pass broad policy overhauls while totally sidelining the minority. It lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, lining it up with the House’s simple majority rules.

However, one of the caveats is that the measures tucked into the bill must deal with taxes, spending or the national debt. One key person gets the final say over what is relevant to that sphere – the Senate parliamentarian. 

The parliamentarian, who heads the Senate’s parliamentarian office, is a nonpartisan, unelected role appointed by the Senate majority leader. It does not have a fixed term.

The person’s role is to advise the Senate and its staff on the chamber’s rules and precedent. The normally low-profile role has been thrust into the spotlight several times in congressional history, however, particularly surrounding reconciliation.

‘At the end of the day, it really is a judgment call. And sometimes you’re making a judgment call where you’re relying on similar situations or maybe analogous situations where we dealt with reconciliation in the past, maybe other times you’re dealing with a completely novel issue, and you’re having to figure it out,’ one former senior Senate aide described to Fox News Digital.

‘Or maybe, and this happens a lot, people are trying get things through, debating or citing past provisions of previous reconciliation bills…saying ‘Hey, this provision is very similar, and this got through.’’

The Senate parliamentarian leads the ‘Byrd bath,’ a key part of the reconciliation process where the legislation is carefully examined, and any measures found not relevant to the contours of reconciliation are stripped out.

Notably, progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., called for the firing of the Senate parliamentarian in 2021 when she forced Senate Democrats to scuttle their $15 per hour minimum wage effort from their reconciliation bill at the time.

That same parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed by the late former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is still serving today and has largely garnered bipartisan respect for her handling of the role.

MacDonough, appointed in 2012, is the first woman in the job. She was a part of the parliamentarian’s office before that and briefly served as an attorney in the Department of Justice, according to NPR.

‘I would say that this particular parliamentarian sees herself more as, almost an administrative law judge, and I think that she has generally viewed some of the things that the Senate has been allowed to get away with in reconciliation as a departure from precedent,’ said Paul Winfree, president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center and a former Senate Budget Committee staffer himself, told Fox News Digital.

‘I think that she has more of a ‘small-c’ conservative approach to what is allowable. At the same time, a lot of what is considered to be allowable under reconciliation is dependent on estimates that are produced by the Congressional Budget Office or the joint tax committee.’

When asked if any of the current public reconciliation plans could face issues with the parliamentarian, both people who spoke with Fox News Digital floated an accounting maneuver that would largely obscure the cost of permanently extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

That scoring method, known as current policy baseline, would zero out the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts by measuring it as an extension of the current economic conditions, rather than factoring in how much less the government is taking in via tax revenues with the cuts in effect.

Senate Republicans have signaled they believe they have the legal basis for moving forward with that calculation, however, without the parliamentarian’s say.

‘We think the law is very clear, and ultimately the budget committee chairman makes that determination,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters last month.

The Senate GOP aide who spoke with Fox News Digital said, ‘If that were to have fallen out or just, you didn’t know what was going to happen, that would just affect so many provisions in the bill.’

‘Because all of a sudden, you know, all these things start scoring [as an increase to the deficit]…and things become more problematic with your instructions,’ the former aide said.

Winfree, however, said Republicans have appeared to be mindful overall with how they have written the text so far.

‘They’ve actually been pretty conservative in how they’ve approached the language,’ he said.

He said it was ‘possible some of the immigration provisions could get a second look,’ but that even then, he believed it would ‘ultimately be okay.’

Republican leaders have said they hope to have a bill on Trump’s desk by Fourth of July.

Fox News Digital reached out to the current Senate Majority Leader’s office for comment.

President Donald Trump declared Monday that the U.S. ‘will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma’ as he signed an executive order implementing what his administration is calling ‘most favored nations drug pricing.’ 

‘The principle is simple – whatever the lowest price paid for a drug in other developed countries, that is the price that Americans will pay,’ Trump said at the White House. ‘Some prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices will be reduced almost immediately by 50 to 80 to 90%.’ 

Trump said that ‘starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the healthcare of foreign countries, which is what we were doing. We’re subsidizing others’ healthcare, the countries where they paid a small fraction of what for the same drug that what we pay many, many times more for and will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma.’ 

‘Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s population, pharmaceutical companies make more than two thirds of their profits in America. So think of that with 4% of the population, the pharmaceutical companies make most of their money. Most of their profits from America. That’s not a good thing,’ Trump continued.  

‘I think, by the way, pharmaceutical – I have great respect for these companies and for the people that run them. I really do, and I think they did one of the greatest jobs in history for their company, convincing people for many years that this was a fair system. Nobody really understood why, but I figured it out. For years, pharmaceutical and drug companies have said that research and development costs were what they are, and for no reason whatsoever, they had to be borne by America alone,’ Trump said. ‘Not anymore, they don’t.’ 

The White House said that the executive order ‘directs the U.S. Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce to take action to ensure foreign countries are not engaged in practices that purposefully and unfairly undercut market prices and drive price hikes in the United States.

‘The Order instructs the Administration to communicate price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers to establish that America, the largest purchaser and funder of prescription drugs in the world, gets the best deal,’ the White House said.

‘The Secretary of Health and Human Services will establish a mechanism through which American patients can buy their drugs directly from manufacturers who sell to Americans at a ‘Most-Favored-Nation’ price, bypassing middlemen,’ the White House added. ‘If drug manufacturers fail to offer most-favored-nation pricing, the Order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) propose rules that impose most-favored-nation pricing; and (2) take other aggressive measures to significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs to the American consumer and end anticompetitive practices.’

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said alongside Trump, ‘I never thought that this would happen in my lifetime.’

‘I have a couple of kids who are Democrats, are big Bernie Sanders fans. And when I told them that this was going to happen, they had tears in their eyes. Because they thought, this is never going to happen,’ he said. ‘And we finally have a president who is willing to stand up for the American people.’ 

Trump said earlier this morning that drug prices would be ‘cut by 59%.’ 

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group opposes the order, saying, ‘This Foreign First Pricing scheme is a bad deal for American patients.’ 

‘Importing foreign prices will cut billions of dollars from Medicare with no guarantee that it helps patients or improves their access to medicines,’ the group’s president, Stephen Ubl, said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. ‘It will jeopardize the hundreds of billions our member companies are planning to invest in America, making us more reliant on China for innovative medicines.’ 

‘To lower costs for Americans, we need to address the real reasons U.S. patients are paying more for their medicines. We are the only country in the world that lets PBMs, insurers and hospitals take 50% of every dollar spent on medicines,’ Ubl also said. ‘In fact, hospital markups in 340B and the rebates and fees paid to middlemen in the U.S. often exceed the total cost of medicines oversees. Giving more of this money to patients will lower their medicine costs and reduce the gap with European prices.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report.  

President Donald Trump defended the U.S. preparing to accept a jumbo jet gift from Qatar’s royal family to serve as a temporary Air Force One as Boeing failed to roll out a new Air Force One fleet in a timely manner. 

‘We’re very disappointed that it’s taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One,’ Trump said during a press conference on drug prices Monday morning. ‘You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old. And if you take a look at that, compared to the new plane of the equivalent, you know, stature at the time, it’s not even the same ballgame.’ 

‘When I first came in, I signed an order to get (the new Air Force One fleet) built,’ he continued. ‘I took it over from the Obama administration, they had originally agreed. I got the price down much lower. And then, when the election didn’t exactly work out the way that it should have, a lot of work was not done on the plane because a lot of people didn’t know they made change orders. That was so stupid, so ridiculous. And it ended up being a total mess, a real mess.’ 

Reports spread Sunday morning that the Trump administration was expected to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s royal family. ABC News reported that Trump would use the jet until the end of his term, when it would be given to his presidential library. 

Trump confirmed Sunday evening on Truth Social that the Department of Defense would receive the 747 as a gift, while railing against Democrats as ‘world class losers’ for criticizing the gift.  

‘So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,’ Trump wrote. ‘Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.’

He continued in the press conference Monday that when he returned to office in January, his administration informed him construction on two new Air Force Ones was ‘way behind’ on the schedule for completion. 

‘If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they’re building the other ones. I think that was a very nice gesture. Now, I could be a stupid person to say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t want a free plane.’ We give free things, we’ll take one, two, and it helps us out. Because again, we’re talking about we have a 40-year-old aircraft. The money we spend, the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy-top is astronomical,’ he added, calling the gift a ‘great gesture from Qatar.’ 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also brushed off concern over the Qatari royal family donating a Boeing jumbo jet to the U.S. Department of Defense, arguing on Monday there will be no quid pro quo arrangement and that the donation is under legal review to ensure full compliance with the law. 

‘The Qatari Government has graciously offered to donate a plane to the Department of Defense,’ Leavitt said on ‘Fox & Friends’ Monday morning. ‘The legal details of that are still being worked out. But, of course, any donation to this government is always done in full compliance with the law, and we commit ourselves to the utmost transparency, and we will continue to do that.’

When asked if the administration was worried that accepting the gift could lead to a quid pro quo situation where Qatar expects something in return, Leavitt shot down such a narrative. 

‘Absolutely not because they know President Trump, and they know he only works with the interests of the American public in mind,’ Leavitt responded. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote to the Government Accountability Office on Sunday, calling for an ethics investigation into the gift, claiming it would be the single most expensive gift ever received by a U.S. president. 

‘I am writing to express alarm over reports that President Donald Trump is poised to accept a luxury aircraft — a Boeing 747-8 — from the government of Qatar,’ Torres wrote. ‘The plane, so opulent it has been described as a ‘palace in the sky,’ is set to be made available to President Trump for official use as Air Force One and then for private use once he leaves office.’ 

‘This ‘flying grift’ is merely the latest chapter in a tawdry tale of presidential profiteering unprecedented in American history,’ Torres added.

Presidents have for decades circumvented the Emoluments Clause — which prohibits federal elected officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments or monarchs — by classifying gifts they receive while in office as gifts to the office of the president. Those gifts are then cataloged and stored as part of their presidential libraries after leaving office. 

While presidents maintain some level of access to the items in their libraries, they do not own them directly and must purchase them from the federal government in order to secure private ownership.

Leavitt said in a comment to Fox Digital Monday morning that all gifts received by a foreign government would be above board and in compliance with the law. 

‘Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,’ Leavitt said. ‘President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency.’ 

Trump is headed to the Middle East and is expected to meet with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. A Trump administration official confirmed to Fox News Digital that the plane will not be presented to the president nor accepted by Trump during his trip abroad. 

The current Air Force One fleet includes two aging planes, both of which are more than 30 years old and have been eyed for replacement since at least the Obama administration. 

Trump railed against a government deal with Boeing to build a new fleet of Air Force Ones ahead of his first administration, posting on social media in December 2016 that the ‘costs are out of control, more than $4 billion’ to build the two aircraft.

Trump in 2018 awarded Boeing a $3.9 billion fixed-price agreement to manufacture two new jets. The construction of the jets, however, is not expected to be completed until 2029. 

‘Boeing is proud to build the next generation of Air Force One, providing American Presidents with a flying White House at outstanding value to taxpayers,’ Boeing said in 2018 after ironing out a deal with Trump for the creation of the new fleet. ‘President Trump negotiated a good deal on behalf of the American people.’ 

‘The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,’ Qatari embassy official Ali Al-Ansari told ABC News Sunday. 

When not in office as president, Trump has traveled in his private Boeing 757 jet, dubbed Trump Force One. That jet is famously emblazoned with Trump’s last name and was frequently seen in the backdrop of campaign rallies.

China has agreed to ‘open itself up to American business’ following trade negotiations between Washington, D.C., and Beijing on Saturday, according to President Donald Trump.

The arrangement was arguably the most significant development stemming from the trade negotiations, Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. Plans have yet to be finalized and ‘papered,’ but Trump said that China is on board with the agreement. 

‘The biggest thing to me is the opening up,’ Trump told reporters Monday during an announcement regarding an executive order on drug prices in the U.S. ‘It would be, I think it would be fantastic for our businesses if we could go in and compete and compete with China. It would be a lot of jobs for China.’

‘I think it’s maybe the most important thing to happen, because if you think about it, we opened up our country to China,’ Trump said. ‘They come. We don’t. I mean, they have very few restrictions. and they didn’t open their country to us, never made sense to them. It’s not fair. And they’ve agreed to open China fully open…and I think it’s going to be fantastic.’ 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched trade negotiations with China in Geneva on Saturday, resulting in a deal that would temporarily ease up on tariffs for 90 days.  

Specifically, the trade deal stipulates that the U.S. will cut down its tariffs against Chinese imports from 145% to 30%. Likewise, China will reduce its tariffs against U.S. imports from 125% to 10%. 

However, tariffs against some Chinese imports will not lighten up, according to Trump. Existing tariffs against cars, steel and aluminum will still remain in place, he said. 

Meanwhile, Bessent signaled that more talks with China would occur in the near future and that both Washington and Beijing would like to continue advancing negotiations. 

‘I would imagine that in the next few weeks, we will be meeting again to get rolling on a more fulsome agreement,’ Bessent said in an interview Monday morning with CNBC. 

Bessent previously warned that the tariffs could cost China up to 10 million jobs, and said that it was up to Beijing whether it would loosen up the tariffs or not.  

‘I think that over time we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China,’ Bessent told reporters at the White House on April 29. ‘I’ve seen some very large numbers over the past few days that show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly. And even if there is a drop in the tariffs that they could lose five million jobs.’

The deal with China comes days after the U.S. and the U.K. inked a trade deal of their own, which kept existing 10% tariffs in place against U.K. goods but removed some import taxes on items like steel and cars. 

‘With this deal, the U.K. joins the United States in affirming that reciprocity and fairness is an essential and vital principle of international trade,’ Trump said Thursday. ‘The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access for American exports, especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers.’