Last week thirty-six members of the House Freedom Caucus helped defeat the House bill to replace Obamacare. It was a bad bill and deserved to be defeated. Because of this action, President Trump has attacked the Freedom caucus and wants them to face defeat in 2018. Three Virginia Republicans are in this group, Congressmen Dave Brat, Morgan Griffith, and Tom Garrett.
Of course, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, being no fan of The Freedom Caucus, was quick to sympathize with the President. From the Washington Post:
“I understand the president’s frustration,” said Ryan, who has unable to push the health-care bill through his own chamber. “I share frustration. About 90 percent of our conference is for this bill to repeal and replace Obamacare and about 10 percent are not. And that’s not enough to pass a bill.”
Ryan went on to say he had no plans to bring another health care bill to the floor of the House:
“This is too big of an issue to not get right, and so I’m not going to put some kind of artificial deadline on saving the American health-care system from oncoming collapse,” said Ryan, who initially scheduled the bill’s passage for the seventh anniversary of the Affordable Care Act’s signing.
Freedom caucus member Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich) responded to the President in a tweet saying:
“It didn’t take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump, No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment.”
Let’s face it, the DC Establishment hates The Freedom Caucus and that’s not likely to change. Fortunately, the Freedom Caucus members live in districts with freedom loving Republicans who will keep them in office. We hope their numbers increase. Paging Congressman Rob Wittman.
More here.
33 comments
I keep repeating this as I really believe this is a critical point that most if not all professional career politicians just don’t or can’t grasp. President Trump is NOT in either character, working style or goal orientation a party pol. He never has been and will likely never be one. SO to constantly frame your interpretations of his reactions and his approach to driving results as the chief executive of government in the model of a guy like George W. Bush is a lost cause that is going to lead to a ton of misunderstandings and miscommunication.
Is President Trump going to toss away his executive style and approach to re-adapt to the “way we do things” here in the House and/or the Senate? I believe the answer to that is clearly NO, and with some justification as his overwhelming Electoral College win was based almost exclusively on NOT continuing to do things the way we have in a Congress whose poll ratings were constantly hovering at the 10-15% level prior to his election.
He is currently aggrieved because 25 or so individuals who happened to call themselves the Freedom Caucus collectively thwarted a deal the Speaker of the House apparently fully mislead him to believe was a done event – YES. Was the bill in need of reconsideration -YES. Did Speaker Ryan go about this attempt of bill passage in a manner to try and undercut the conservative and other members of the House that opposed this bill once they were given the chance to see it – YES. Is President Trump unhappy with this group’s deal opposition as it called for pulling the whole legislative process off the administration’s timetables -YES. Is that about conservatives per say – NO.
Here is the number ONE thing that any political group in either the House or the Senate has to have either printed on the walls of their beltway offices of written on their palms in indelible magic marker. President Trump is driven by “transactions” NOT by deeply emoted political philosophy. He is a corporate officer (sitting in the oval office) that is driving “RESULTS” to present at the next shareholders meeting (election event) from himself and his board (cabinet). He is not motivated in spending time or energy in securing political philosophical brownie points to frame around sixty second stump speeches for the next town hall reelection swing out of the beltway.
Rep. Brat recently stated in a media interview that he wasn’t really aware who had President Trump’s ear. With all due respect to Rep. Brat he couldn’t have more clearly publicly stated that he has no idea how to interface into the sitting president. No one has the president ear or any potential part of his anatomy although he does have a Board (cabinet) and close associates he does elicit opinions from. Rep. Brat is working around the traditional model of factionalism and who is ascendant and who is not that has driven Washington politics for close to fifty plus years. It will completely fail in the current case.
To be successful with our new president it is my opinion you need to do only two basic things.
FIRST, understand that to “move” forward your position with our chief executive you need to “come” forward with ideas, approaches and methods to further or close the actual issue, problem or transaction that sits in front of him on his desk at that “point in time”. Opposition for opposition sake is going to get you NOWHERE. That does not mean you can not be in opposition to what is on the table but if so you have to bring more then a “I don’t like it” to the table you MUST also bring an approach or solution to move the existing bill (deal in Trump’s terms) forward that is clear, focused and achievable. If you can’t adjust your partisan style to this type of output expect to be shown out the door rather quickly and consigned to a largely minority position of interest in this administration.
SECOND, understand the old ways of political careerists working the agenda are gone for the foreseeable future. If you want to be heard by the new chief executive understand WHO you are attempting to communicate with. This isn’t one of your party buddies or pals from Congress that has been moved up into the big chair. This isn’t one of the political royal families that controlled the WH for decades this is a very successful ex-CEO that got feed up with the over regulation, exporting of American jobs and open boarders and ran for election (connected but not of the Republican party) as an outsider and crushed the competition. If you want to understand President Trump don’t read a book on Andrew Jackson whom he clearly IS NOT read an article on one of the several CEOs below and you might begin to have a clue on both who you are dealing with and how to effectively approach and work successfully with him.
Mikael Ohlsson, of the Swedish home-products company IKEA; Andrea, Jung of the personal-care-products firm Avon; Carlos Ghosn of Nissan Motor Company; Ken Frazier of Merck; Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle; Dominic Barton McKinsey & Company; John Schlifske, Northwestern Mutual; Joe Tucci, EMC; Richard Davis , US Bank; Pierre Nanterma, Accenture; Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia or Ken Chenault, American Express to recommend just a few.
The people have chosen it’s time for some congressional style adjustments, The smart ones will be the ones that get the point, those incapable, well there is always retirement.
This is the clearest, most succinct description of how Trump works I’ve read. Ever.
In this case, Lawrence, your paragraph #4 hits the nail on the head.
A must-read for anyone in DC.
All true, except… Trump is smart enough to change quickly when things don’t work. Trump let Ryan take the lead on moving Trump’s first real legislation through Congress, and that was a mistake. That 3-phase nonsense is not Trump’s style; it was classic Ryan. Trump doesn’t make many mistakes twice, and I doubt that Ryan will be fully trusted in the same way again. Sure the Freedom Caucus irritated Trump, but he is also smart enough to know he cannot fight them continually if he wants to get his agenda executed, so he will find a way to get their support when necessary. Those hoping Trump will actively campaign against the HFC in 2018, are likely to be disappointed. He is too pragmatic for that. He will work with them, just as he will work with Democrats, whenever it’s necessary.
I agree completely with your assessment. The HFC issue is a blip that some I suspect in the House (Ryanites) would like to fan and keep alive for their own fractionalist intra party interests. On the other hand the HFC needs to get focused on how to work effectively with President Trump. As I stated above philosophical political knee jerk reactions on policy (which to be honest has been their stock and trade for some time how) needs to be set aside for focus on translating conservatism into very grounded policy options that they can present to the president and his team.
This is something they frankly have been far less adept at accomplishing except on the a very macro conceptual level. “Big government is bad” for example is not an operational input into a specific policy transaction. It’s a statement of philosophy. Some House and Senate members will grasp the need to transition here and make the grade, some will end up sitting at the bottom of the hill spinning their wheels confused and endlessly complaining until the voters that action.
heard an interesting number this week. With Trump being elected with about 45% of the vote and now with an approval rating of 35%, he has lost 1/4 his original support.. I hope you TBE lovers realize how much the rest of us are laughing at you and yours.
I’ll be laughing for several years while he deconstructs your globalist pipedreams.
we all sink together – see you at the bottom. I will be the one able to say “I told you so”
Wrong. In a couple of years the Trump economic plan is going to have a robust economy humming along.
Nobody really cares about your laughter. Nonsense numbers about nonsense ratings may give fake news something to talk about, but the grown ups are back in charge.
Trump is dead wrong to do this.
Still better than Hillary…
Yes, America got to chose between 4 years of Benghazi investigations or 4 years of Russia investigations. The choice was clear.
If we’re going to light our hair on fire every time this President issues an ill-considered tweet, we’re going to be spending a lot of time with our hair on fire. If this is a declaration of war, then Trump has declared war on everyone, including the republican establishment, because Trump uses twitter to lash out like this at everyone who crosses him in the least. I think we’re best served to give the tweets nothing more than an eye roll. Decent folk will never like what Trump says, but hopefully we can get behind most of what he does. I’m saving my criticism for when he does stupid things (which has been thankfully rare so far) and not wasting it on the frequent occasions when he says stupid things.
Come on Mr. President. Regroup and refocus. Head to Camp David and get out of the swamp for a bit.
Too late.
HFC is roughly 1/5 of 1/2 of the House…. Not much going for them…. The left is targeting them in ’18.
Trump’s ex- voters will be targeting the rest. The Dems win, the Georgia coup plotters not so much. That’s the war they wanted, that’s the war they get.
Not sure about the rest of the country, but Brat is doing what those in his district are telling him to do. To them, he is a hero. The Trumpcare bill is a disaster for everybody but Wall St.
One thing for sure? I cannot not see how the country is going to benefit from 4 more years of Trump. And, Pence or Ryan, Uck. And the Dems are just as bad. The Dems don’t even know where to S–t.
Mark Meadows went home for a Town Hall and got a standing ovation… so yes, the voters know who is living up to their promises and who is trying to once again betray us.
And now, Trump is tweeting against the HFC. Those just happen to be the very people who elected him.
How stupid is that?
In general their constituents support them because they are (or at least some of them are) the only principled Republicans in DC. They are not going anywhere is ’18.
That’s 10%? 1 in 10? Like 30 guys right?
DC, where the fun never sets
Barbara Comstock better keep checking her rearview mirror as well.
Trump’s next rally….
Turn your computer audio up really loud.
Can you hear the applause?
Turn it up louder. Still nothing?
Welcome to the next election.
I’ll let you know, I’ll be there.
According to the media, the FBI now has a canary looking to sign a singing contract??????
Don’t be surprised if the canary turns out to be a parrot.
Should be easy to get front row seats at a discount.
That explains President Obama in Tahiti.
Some people can live in Bora Bora on other people’s money. The rest of us have to settle for eating bananas and grilled iguana in a less spacious grass hut.
Not in the healthiest County in America!
Ryan needs better than 90% GOP to pass something?
How can he call himself Speaker of the House?
Even Boehner did more with less.