Getting the second reconciliation bill to President Trump’s desk has been a bruising job for Republicans in both chambers. So the idea that GOP leaders have the stomach — or the stamina — for another budget bill is a little surprising. While a third bite at reconciliation seemed almost inevitable after a lot of the party’s priorities were stripped from the latest proposal, the landscape has changed for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). Do Republicans still have the will to work together and with Trump? For a party in desperate need of policy wins before the midterms, they might not have a choice.

Tuesday’s triumph — an end to the Democrats’ months-long siege on immigration enforcement — only built on Johnson’s legacy as a deliverer of the impossible. With just two votes to spare (and plenty of cranky contrarians), he somehow glued Republicans together long enough to pass three years’ worth of ICE and border patrol funding. The Louisianan had called the $70 billion package “a real challenge.” “We have to fund border enforcement and immigration enforcement, and everybody here knows that, so they’re going to have to put their personal preferences aside to get the job done,” he insisted. And, at the end of the day, they did.

Getting the GOP in both chambers to buckle down and roll another boulder uphill is a different story. Already, the cracks between the House and Senate are showing on a third reconciliation bill strategy, as moderates like Senators Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) tried to throw cold water on the plan. “I think it’s safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,” the outgoing McConnell said earlier this week. “So, it’s really not an option.” Collins chimed in, “I agree with that assessment.”

But that’s news to House conservatives, who are already putting together a battle plan for reconciliation 3.0 that would gather up a big chunk of the GOP’s priorities and make an aggressive push before the long August recess. According to Politico, the Republican Study Committee is already hunkering down with CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation to talk about a laundry list of possibilities on the affordability front — from housing to health care and energy costs. Part of that effort would also be weeding out the explosion of fraud that’s siphoning off billions of taxpayer dollars from key social programs.

There’s also, social conservatives are quick to add, the very serious problem of abortion funding to deal with. In last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill, FRC’s Quena Gonzales reminds people, “congressional Republicans turned off a major spigot of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. Ironically, that pause in funding expires July 4th. If Congress doesn’t act before that date, the spigot will turn back on automatically on America’s 250th birthday.”

That said, moving a monster reconciliation bill would be another “daunting task” for Johnson, observers note, “especially as the election season ramps up. Some conservatives are already pushing for an ambitious bill packed with defense spending, funding for the Iran military conflict, health care reform and other GOP priorities, while others running in battleground districts are wary of backing another sweeping partisan measure that could risk alienating swing voters,” The Hill warns.

But insurmountable obstacles are this speaker’s forte, most people would agree. And the Louisianan seems to be on board with the idea, telling reporters that he expects a draft to start moving “in the coming weeks.” It’ll be a tight squeeze with Congress set to take off three weeks before the August recess — and a logjam of other crises to deal with.

So far, that doesn’t deter conservatives. “People will always say, ‘Oh, you can’t do this. You can’t do that. There’s no way you can pass it by then.’ That’s fine. We’re going to keep our heads down, we’re going to work hard, and I feel comfortable getting it done,” RSC Chair August Pfluger (R-Texas) insisted. Others like Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), head of the House Freedom Caucus, were cautiously optimistic. “Do we ever get to a 3.0? I don’t know. We want to do it.” His Texas colleague, Chip Roy, agreed but added, “It’s going to depend a lot on what they want to put in it.”

More than that, it’ll depend on how willing Senate Republicans are to play ball. Punchbowl’s Laura Weiss outlined several ways the third installment of reconciliation could be torpedoed, thanks in large part to the primaries and other controversial Trump endorsements and projects.

First, there was the drama over the president’s anti-weaponization fund and extra security dollars, which triggered a rebellion from a handful of Senate Republicans — members that Thune will need to wrangle if 3.0 has even the slightest chance. And the larger the package, the more potential there is for a clash of priorities and other objections. Democrats, Weiss notes, will also be able to put the GOP in a tough spot politically with the amendment process, because the reconciliation process empowers the minority party to offer as many as they want. Given the friction between moderates and Trump, there’s no telling how the more liberal Republicans might vote on some of those issues.

That directly relates to the second pitfall for 3.0: recent primary losses. After Trump endorsed the challengers to senators like Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), those outgoing members have nothing to lose in scorning his agenda. No longer beholden to the president, they could be wild cards on any number of items. The tension between the Senate and White House is a legitimate problem for Thune as he tries to juggle expectations.

Then, of course, there are the political realities. No sane person would bet against Mike Johnson at this point, but the margins in both chambers make everything harder, especially in a tight turnaround. Elections add another layer of angst for members in swing states who want to bring down costs but also don’t want to alienate the middle.

Not to mention, Weiss reiterates, “[T]he Senate’s reconciliation process is uniquely challenging.” Apart from the parliamentarian’s power to gut provisions she doesn’t view as compliant, “Senate GOP leaders have to consider not only whether their members will back what’s in the bill, but also if they’ll be willing to fend off Democrats’ attempts to change it. It’s also worth noting that reconciliation 2.0 was a very small piece of legislation compared to what these party-line bills typically look like. A bigger bill would be that much harder.”

And yet, for Thune and Johnson both, the adversity of the last two years has never been cause to quit. They just continue to plow on, handling all of the complexities of their party and chambers in stride. There’s no reason to think that ends now. Besides, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) pointed out, “We’ve been pulled together as a party more than any time in history. Name one time in American history where the Republican Party has voted more in line with each other for a percentage to pass bills. Never been another time,” he stressed. “Matter of fact, I was just talking to other people who had been here during the early 2000s when we had the biggest majority in modern history and couldn’t pass anything. Why? Because when you get big, people get more and more divided. …When you’re in a small majority, you have to vote together. And I think we’re there right now,” he said.