The president’s backers know he didn’t run as a traditional Republican
At this point, if Mr. Trump really wants to operate as a political independent, and attract the support of politically independent Americans to bolster the effort, picking a fight with Republican leaders probably will only help him. In recent Journal/NBC News polling, the share of independents who had a negative view of the GOP outstripped those with a positive view by a hefty 31 percentage points.
.. Democratic leaders probably have the license to cooperate with Mr. Trump on raising the debt ceiling, funding government and improving infrastructure, and on some trade matters. But the party base figures to rise up against the kind of large-scale tax cut and defense-spending increases Mr. Trump envisions and revolt if he doesn’t agree to extend legal status for “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children.So cooperation with Democrats has distinct boundaries. But nobody should be surprised Mr. Trump is choosing to test those boundaries at this point.
‘Trump betrays everyone’: The president has a long record as an unpredictable ally
President Trump prepared for the pivotal meeting with congressional leaders by huddling with his senior team — his chief of staff, his legislative director and the heads of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget — to game out various scenarios on how to fund the government, raise the debt ceiling and provide Hurricane Harvey relief.
But one option they never considered was the that one the president ultimately chose: cutting a deal with Democratic lawmakers, to the shock and ire of his own party.
.. The president was an unpredictable — and, some would say, untrustworthy — negotiating partner with not only congressional Republicans but also with his Cabinet members and top aides.
.. His dealings are frequently defined by freewheeling spontaneity, impulsive decisions and a desire to keep everyone guessing — especially those who assume they can control him.
.. He also repeatedly demonstrates that, while he demands absolute loyalty from others, he is ultimately loyal to no one but himself.
.. “It makes all of their normalizing and ‘Trumpsplaining’ look silly and hollow,”
.. “Trump betrays everyone:
- wives,
- business associates,
- contractors,
- bankers and now,
- the leaders of the House and Senate in his own party.
They can’t explain this away as [a] 15-dimensional Trump chess game. It’s a dishonest person behaving according to his long-established pattern.”
.. he relished the opportunity for a bipartisan agreement and the praise he anticipated it would bring
.. On Thursday morning, he called Pelosi and Schumer to crow about coverage of the deal — “The press has been incredible,” he told Pelosi
.. The treasury secretary presented himself as a Wall Street insider, arguing that the stability of the markets required an 18-month extension.
At one point, Schumer intervened with a skeptical question: “So the markets dictate one month past the 2018 election?” he asked, rhetorically, according to someone with knowledge of his comment. “I doubt that.”
.. The Republican leaders and Mnuchin slowly began moderating their demands, moving from their initial pitch down to 12 months and then six months. At one point, when Mnuchin was in the middle of yet another explanation, the president cut him off, making it clear that he disagreed.
.. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) ..
.. “I support the president, I want him to be successful, I want our country to be successful,” Zeldin said in an interview afterward. “But I personally believe the president had more leverage than he may have realized. He had more Democratic votes than he realized, and could have and would have certainly gotten a better deal.”
.. Trump is a fickle ally and partner, liable to turn on them much in the same way he has turned on his business associates and foreign allies.
.. “Looking to the long term, trust and reliability have been essential ingredients in productive relationships between the president and Congress,” said Phil Schiliro, who served as director of legislative affairs under Obama. “Without them, trying to move a legislative agenda is like juggling on quicksand. It usually doesn’t end well.”
Shields and Gerson on Trump’s deal with Democrats, DACA’s demise
Republicans were livid with the way Trump handled them over the debt ceiling. They were not livid over all Trump’s other outrages.
Trump has special chemistry with Chuck Schumer, as a fellow New Yorker.
Trump delighted in favorable press coverage from the Mainstream Media he claims to hate.
Trump Stuns GOP by Dealing With Democrats on Debt, Harvey Aid
However, Mr. Trump’s decision to align with Democrats over the objections of GOP leaders and a member of his cabinet is likely to inflame tensions between the president and his fellow Republicans. Just hours earlier, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) had called Democrats’ proposal to combine Harvey aid and a three-month debt limit increase “ridiculous” and “unworkable.”
Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said it was “terrible” for Mr. Trump to undercut his fellow Republicans, particularly when their partisan adversaries were witnesses to it. “The president should not do that,” Mr. Lott, a Republican, said. “It is embarrassing to Republican leadership and it shows a split.”
.. During the Oval Office meeting,
- Mr. Ryan,
- Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.),
- House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) and
- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
all pushed for a longer suspension of the debt limit increase, according to people briefed on the meeting, with Mr. Trump cutting off Mr. Mnuchin at one point.
.. Republicans initially advocated for an 18-month extension, pushing the next vote on the debt limit until after next year’s midterm elections. When Democratic leaders, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, rejected that, the GOP leaders suggested a six-month extension.With congressional leaders at a standstill, they planned to agree to disagree, according to a person briefed on the meeting. Instead, the president accepted the deal from Democrats and later singled out only those two leaders in announcing the deal. “We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,” he said.
.. But privately, Senate Republican aides said the deal registered as a rebuke, following a stormy summer
.. Mr. Trump picked a sensitive subject on which to take his stand Wednesday. Republicans have made addressing debt and deficits a cornerstone of their governing philosophy.
Former House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) was vilified by conservatives for his budget and debt limit deals with President Barack Obama, a Democrat, which helped build pressure leading to Mr. Boehner’s resignation in September 2015.
The prospect of having to vote again in three months to raise the borrowing limit—and to do so less than a year before the 2018 elections, and at a time when Democrats will seek to extract concessions on must-pass items like a new spending bill—represented a major concession, some GOP lawmakers said. “The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.) said in a statement.
.. “We very, very poorly deal with our finances and we’re heading ourselves into a fiscal crisis,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) told reporters Wednesday.
.. Mr. Sessions said he strongly preferred a longer time line for the debt limit and said the next vote in December would be harder. “He is new to the negotiation,” Mr. Sessions said of the president. “Experience teaches you that it’s not this vote that’s the hardest. The next one is.”
.. Democrats had said Wednesday that their offer was designed in part to maintain their leverage in other negotiations over issues including health care and Mr. Trump’s decision Tuesday to end after six months an Obama-era program that shields undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children.