Senate Republicans say something must change with House communication
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Senate Republicans are assessing their relationship with the House GOP as they prepare for another key test of intercaucus unity.
The last few months of Republican control of Congress were marked by dysfunction, miscommunication, and lost time, especially during the longest government shutdown in history.
Republicans in the upper chamber do not choose the people to take charge in the House of Representatives, but they agree that something needs to change as they scramble to fund immigration operations for the next few years.
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Senate Republicans were frustrated with their colleagues in the House over the slow pace of the legislative process. Some argue it’s a miscommunication between the leadership, while others blame it on how different the two chambers are. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“I think we should all get in a room and figure out what our plan is,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital. “So how do we get things done for the American people? That has to be the goal, and something needs to change right now.”
Republicans are preparing to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol over the next three and a half years through budget reconciliation, which would require near-perfect unanimity in both chambers, given that Democrats have stayed out of the process.
But divisions between the chambers became apparent during the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, when House Republicans led by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused to consider the Senate’s compromise plan to reopen the agency.
This decision extended the closure process by nearly a month and increased the necessity to seek reconciliation. It also increased frustration between the Senate and House of Representatives at a time when leadership and President Donald Trump were calling for unity.
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Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., attended the Senate hearing at the U.S. Capitol. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Both Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have a slim majority to work with; Johnson more than Thune. That fact isn’t lost on Senate Republicans, especially those on legislation that Democrats won’t support, and so far it’s keeping the knives from coming out of the upper chamber.
“I mean, I think we understand the challenges Mike faces there. He’s not the king. He’s the speaker of the House of Representatives,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. he said. “And proportionately their margin of error is less than ours. So I can’t imagine. I think he’s doing the best he can.”
Some Republicans argue this is a communication problem between the chambers rather than rampant dysfunction in the House.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital that he didn’t buy the argument of “dysfunction of the entire House” and instead said it was incumbent on senators to do more.
“I think we need to have some ownership here in the Senate, and that’s simply not true. [just] “Leadership, but all of us,” Moreno said. “Because we must have complete and total synchronicity with the House as we work on bills.”
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Senate Majority Rep. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., speaks to reporters after the vote at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2026. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
House Republicans, for example, claimed they were blindsided by the Senate agreement earlier this year to reopen much of DHS, which provides funding for ICE and Border Patrol.
“We need to make sure we’re communicating better and working on the issues,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. “The parliament is not our enemy. We should be able to solve all problems with a law. We have differences of opinion. OK, let’s solve them.”
The communications issue has largely been handled by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former GOP senator who has served as a de facto liaison between both chambers for major legislative moves since Republicans took control of both chambers last year.
Asked whether Republicans need Mullin 2.0, Lankford said the main points of communication fall on Thune and Johnson.
And Thune was quick to publicly criticize Johnson or House Republicans, stating that the nature and functioning of both chambers would cause problems down the line.
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“Obviously we have a 60-vote threshold,” Thune said. “We need Democrats. You know, he doesn’t need Democrats, but he needs every Republican, and that’s a real challenge on a good day. And, you know, sometimes there just aren’t too many good days around here.”
By contrast, Senate Majority Rep. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said despite the problems, if Republicans had not formed a united front to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” Americans would have faced the biggest tax increase in decades if Democrats had been in control of the chambers.
“If the Democrats were in the majority and could do whatever they wanted to raise taxes, all of this would be the exact opposite,” Barrasso told Fox News Digital.
