Republican leaders in Congress are having a tough time figuring out how to pass Donald Trump’s agenda.

Since Trump’s election, congressional Republicans have been divided over how to proceed: Write one giant, sweeping bill containing more or less everything in Trump’s agenda—immigration and border security, tax reform, and energy policy being three key blocs—or proceed via two or more smaller bills. Speaker Mike Johnson prefered one bill, Politico reports, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune thinks tax policies should be in a separate bill.

Trump, however, told Johnson that he wants “one big beautiful bill,” the speaker told his caucus Saturday, but Republicans in the Senate said that they were still figuring out the right strategy.

“We’re working through all that,” Thune said. “The process issues to me are a lot less important than the results.”

Other Republicans in the House, such as Representative Jason Smith, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, also favor the one-bill approach. Trump said publicly on Sunday that he wanted one large bill, but only hours later confusingly seemed to signal he’d be open to two bills.

Whatever ends up being the final approach, it’s going to divide Republicans in one or both of the chambers. Historically, the one-bill strategy hasn’t worked well for either party, as Democrats who backed the “Build Back Better” bill under Biden remember. That bill was supposed to pass in 2021 but ended up being weakened, only passing in the form of the scaled-down Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022.

There’s also the problem of the looming debt limit, which many Republicans oppose raising. The next budget now has a condition of a $2.5 trillion spending cut thanks to the last budget deal made last month. That will put a lot of Trump’s wishes in jeopardy and could result in another government shutdown if it isn’t prioritized.

Republicans can only afford to lose one vote in the House, and three in the Senate, making the odds of getting full agreement on a big bill pretty slim. Can Trump help everyone iron out their differences to help him get what he wants? History shows that he hasn’t been a unifying leader, even in his own party.

Rudy Giuliani was held in contempt Monday for failing to comply with discovery requirements in his ongoing defamation case brought by two Georgia election workers.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman slammed the disgraced politico for his “blithe disregard” of court orders, and said his behavior during discovery had been “preposterous.” Giuliani had been ordered to pay 2020 election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss $148 million for repeatedly defaming them as part of Donald Trump’s election fraud conspiracies. But the ex-mayor was less than forthcoming in forking over the money and assets that he owed.

Liman said that Giuliani “has testified that he did not respond because he suspected the motives of plaintiff’s counsel. That is not an excuse for violating the court’s orders.”

“More important, as the Court informed the defendant, if there was reason to believe the plaintiff’s counsel misused discovery or would misuse discovery, he could raise that with the court. It was not an excuse to take the law into his own hands,” Liman continued.

It seems that Liman had had enough of Giuliani’s screwing around Monday. At one point during proceedings, Giuliani’s attorney asked if he could “explain whether he violated any court orders,” according to MSNBC’s Adam Klasfeld. When the plaintiffs’ lawyers objected, Liman allowed it, noting that the “witness’s self-serving statement carries limited weight.”

Last week, Giuliani appeared in court to determine whether he needed to hand over his $3.5 million Florida condominium to the plaintiffs. He’d claimed that the condo was his permanent residence, granting it homestead protections from debt collectors, but lawyers for Freeman and Moss argued that he was lying about the property. For his part, Giuliani seemed more worried how his courtroom sketch would turn out.

Trump is taking credit for Justin Trudeau’s resignation—and pitching Canada as the 51st state in the process.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation on Monday after a decade of service as the country’s prime minister. Trudeau’s exit comes as his party faces a likely defeat in upcoming elections this year.

“I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide, competitive process,” Trudeau said in an Ottawa press conference on Monday.

Trump took this opporunity to blast Trudeau for not capitulating to him during their tariff conflict, in which the President-elect promised to enact a massive 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico unless they bent to his absurd demands on trade and immigration. He........

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