Trump Took the White House, which is Great, But I think he Took Too Many House Republicans with Him.
National Security Advisor Michael Waltz is getting a lot of press these days. It stems from our decision to attack some terrorists in Yemen, known as the Houthis. Waltz decided to use a commercial messaging app called Signal to keep 18 senior military officials informed on the operation. Well, sadly one person included on his list was a reprobate named Jeffrey Goldberg. He is a reporter for the left-wing The Atlantic magazine. For those of you who might not remember it was Goldberg who pushed the fake story that Trump said veterans were suckers and losers. This conveniently came out just weeks before an election. Goldberg is a Trump hater of the first order, a man who will attack Trump whenever he can, and sadly the Trump administration through Mike Waltz handed him an opportunity.
How did Waltz manage to get Goldberg on the list? I have no idea, while I do believe it was an accident, that is I don’t believe that Waltz is a secret Democrat or has a Democrat saboteur working under him, it is still a big goof up. Predictably Goldberg used the information to attack the Trump administration. He claimed that the Trump administration sent out “classified material” and “war plans”, this is false, but I have no doubt that Goldberg is ok with spreading lies when it comes to Republicans. He wants to push a scandal, any scandal no matter how artificial. We now have “Signalgate.”
Will Mike Waltz turn out to be an excellent or good National Security Advisor. Will he turn out to be one of Trump’s good picks. Maybe he will but we know that Mike Waltz was a very good Congressman. He was in the House last year, and after the election Trump tapped him to be National Security Advisor. Was it really so important for Waltz to give up a House seat to join the Trump administration. Seems to me that Trump could have found a lot of good candidates to be National Security Advisor, and that Waltz would have been more help to him and to the country remaining in the House. No doubt that Trump could rely on Waltz’s vote on the upcoming “one big, beautiful bill”.
Well next week there will be an election to fill Waltz’s vacant House seat. The sixth district in Florida is solid red, one might say ruby red, Trump carried the district by 32 points, and Ron DeSantis once held the seat, but it seems that the Republican nominee state Sen. Randy Fine is struggling, and a once easy victory now looks like it will be close. His Democrat opponent Josh Weil, a teacher, has outraised Fine nearly 10-to-1.
Fine should win and hold the seat for Republicans, but special elections are always a roll of the dice. The party in power has voters that are happy, the party out of power has angry voters. Angry voters are more likely to turn out. Plus, in a special election there is no incumbent which helps the out of power challenger. Republicans can lose the seat and still be in the majority, but it will make it very difficult to pass anything without having to rely on Democrats.
Also, Trump created another House vacancy last year when he nominated Florida Representative Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General. After only a few weeks and before his confirmation hearings Gaetz realized that he didn’t have the votes to get confirmed so he withdrew his name from consideration. However, he already announced his resignation from the House. So, voters in a special election will fill his seat. The 1st district, Gaetz’s seat, should be held by Republicans, but again it’s not a guarantee.
The outcome of these two special elections will have a big effect on Trump’s presidency going forward. Currently, Republicans control the House 218 to 213 Democrats and as mentioned 2 special elections will be held next week (on April fool’s day), both considered safe Republican seats, and there are 2 Democratic seats up, one in Arizona and one in Texas. The Republican majority is very thin, and it is even thinner when you consider that Republican Representative Tom Massie, a gadfly and back bencher, is almost always a no vote. And there are about 6 House Freedom Caucus members who love to vote no on any government spending bill or anything that smacks of compromise. So, there is really no margin for error for Speaker Mike Johnson.
With this in mind Trump on Thursday decided to pull Elise Stefanik’s appointment to the United Nations, in favor of her keeping her in the House of Representatives. A smart move. With the Waltz seat in some jeopardy Trump will need Stefanik to remain. Actually, either way I think he will need her in the House.
Trump explained that while he thought Republicans were going to keep both Florida seats, he told reporters that he “Didn’t want to take a chance”, and that “we already have a slim margin”, so he asked Stefanik to remain in the House instead of being our next Ambassador to the United Nations.
It may have only been three Republicans that Trump took out of the House, but it was really three too many.
David Shephard is the author of two books. Elections Have Consequences, A Cautionary Tale.
Norton’s Choice: An Inside Politics Exposé: Shephard, David: 9781892538802: Amazon.com: Books
4 comments
Things to learn from California. Never ever give up political seats to fill bureaucratic seats. Too many things can go wrong. Or you end up with ranked voting preventing your party from ever winning again.
The information in the transcript included the physical location of an Israeli spy before the attack who was providing real time targeting location info to the strike force. The Israelis are very upset about the release of the information. Why would the Israelis be so upset if the info released was not classified? How can information about an upcoming attack being released via an app before the attack not be considered classified?
Walz is a fool with the intellect of an earthworm.
Speaking of The Stupid. Amanda Chase said if Spanberger is elected people should move out of Virginia.
Let me know when you are ready to move – I’ll come help you pack and drive you to the state line. Maybe Amanda will go back to Alabama — except they probably revoked her re-entry permit they were so happy when she left.
While I support President Trump, he has shown a proclivity for politically intemperate (as in grossly ill-advised) moves. In the past, he single-handedly lost both Georgia Senate seats to the Democrats, nominated a person in Georgia in the next election who could not win despite a strong bench, and now he is going to the House of Representatives to give himself a nearly unworkable margin and risk losing the House.
He is his worst domestic political advisor.