It’s wrong for Trump to blame the conservatives.
Yet in this latest episode, the Freedom Caucus was mostly in the right (and it wasn’t just them — members from all corners of the House GOP found it impossible to back the bill). The American Health Care Act was a kludge of a health-care policy.
.. it probably would have further destabilized the individual market, while millions fewer would have been insured.
.. White House sent adviser Steve Bannon to tell obstinate Freedom Caucus members that they “have no choice” but to vote for the bill. It’s hard to imagine a less effective pitch to a group that has long accused Republican leaders of trying to coerce conservatives into falling in line against their principles.
.. for all their reputed rigidity, most of the Freedom Caucus had accepted the inclusion in the Ryan bill of tax credits for people without access to Medicare, Medicaid, or employer-provided insurance — a policy that they had previously tended to oppose.
.. For all of the praise heaped on the president’s negotiating acumen, he has yet to demonstrate it in his dealings with Congress. Trump’s tweet has all the hallmarks of ineffectually blowing off steam, since it’s hard to imagine the president and his supporters following through with the organizing and funding it would take to try to take out conservative members representing deep-red districts.
Prelude to a Sellout
Trump is a man who is constitutionally incapable of taking responsibility for his own defects and errors, and as such requires an enemy.
.. One of the arguments for Trump — the argument heard most often on talk radio and on the dopier of the cable-news programs — was this: Even where Republicans enjoy theoretical political superiority in Washington, they do not get very much done, because the Establishment, which is made up of moderates who are too eager to compromise with Democrats, subverts the actual conservatives in the Republican caucus. This was, we were told, the great sin of John Boehner and of Paul Ryan — but with a fire-breathing, earth-shaking President Trump on the case, Republicans would rediscover their spines and arise to victory and splendor. What is falling into place in Washington right now is something close to the opposite of that.
.. Trump is teeing up the same shot that his most enthusiastic supporters associate with the hated Establishment: Lining up Republican moderates and Democrats in a bipartisan coalition against conservatives.
.. After the health-care debacle, he is proceeding as though he believes that conservatives are his enemies, and he is ready to recruit Democrats
.. He was never a conservative to begin with, and it is impossible to betray principles that one does not in fact hold.
Trump Warns House Conservatives: ‘Get on the Team’
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump issued a remarkable warning to conservative Republican lawmakers in Congress, suggesting Thursday he would work against them in the midterm elections next year if they don’t support his agenda.
.. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), a co-founder of the group, dismissed the president’s threat.
”We’re trying to help the president, but the fact is you’ve got to look at the legislation,” Mr. Jordan said on Fox News. “And it doesn’t do what we told the voters we were going to do and the American people understand that.”
.. Mr. Ryan issued his own warning of sorts Thursday, saying that the president was likely to shift to the left if Republicans can’t come together.
Negotiation with the Freedom Caucus: Trump Didn’t Care about Congressmen’s Issues
Tim Alberta offered a vivid anecdote:
Thursday afternoon, members of the House Freedom Caucus were peppering the president with wonkish concerns about the American Health Care Act—the language that would leave Obamacare’s “essential health benefits” in place, the community rating provision that limited what insurers could charge certain patients, and whether the next two steps of Speaker Paul Ryan’s master plan were even feasible—when Trump decided to cut them off.
“Forget about the little s***,” Trump said, according to multiple sources in the room. “Let’s focus on the big picture here.”
The group of roughly 30 House conservatives, gathered around a mammoth, oval-shaped conference table in the Cabinet Room of the White House, exchanged disapproving looks. Trump wanted to emphasize the political ramifications of the bill’s defeat; specifically, he said, it would derail his first-term agenda and imperil his prospects for reelection in 2020. The lawmakers nodded and said they understood. And yet they were disturbed by his dismissiveness. For many of the members, the “little s***” meant the policy details that could make or break their support for the bill—and have far-reaching implications for their constituents and the country.
Maybe to Trump these details about the bill were “the little s***.” But to the members in front of him, this was the make-or-break criteria of what makes a good reform bill. You would think the author of The Art of the Deal would have understood the importance of knowing the other side’s priorities. I seem to recall impassioned, insistent assurances during the 2016 Republican presidential primary that Trump was the ultimate dealmaker.