Analyst examines GOP rumors of running against Trump

Republican political analyst Chip Felkel joined Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” program to talk about rumors that Vice President Mike Pence and others from the GOP could challenge President Trump in 2020:

Q: Have you heard and are you hearing any mumbling about running somebody up against Donald Trump?

A: There’s some discussion about that and Pence is in a pretty awkward position, obviously. Being sitting VP, that’s not a good place for him to be having to refute those kinds of rumors. But, there’s certainly a couple of efforts. (Ohio Gov. John) Kasich hasn’t made any qualms about the fact that he would be open to considering it and I think there may be others. This administration has gotten off to a pretty rocky start, and it’s not as much about some of the policies as it is stylistically, about whether or not the approach that the president likes to take by airing his grievances out in 140 characters, whether or not that’s actually the recipe to actually get things done.

Q: It is sort of incredible that Republicans can have the House and Senate and the Oval Office, and somehow not be able to get things done.

A: And they’re not new because the very same fractionalization, tribalism, whatever you want to call it, differences of ideological purism based on who you’re talking to is what led to 17 people running for the presidency and ultimately what led to ... the eventual election of Donald Trump, a guy who basically has no history as a Republican. So there shouldn’t be any surprise that many people were all vying and have their own angles on agendas that ought to be set from the White House, that you would still have some of that going forward ... but quite frankly we haven’t seen a lot of leadership out of this president. We’ve seen a lot of finger-pointing. He hasn’t put a lot of skin in the game himself. On the health care bill particularly, where was the Trump administration plan? We didn’t see that.

Q: Well, what about the work he did at least to try to win over lawmakers when it comes to getting their vote?

A: I think he did some of that, but I’m not sure that he fully appreciates the process, and maybe that’s why he got elected, because people don’t like the process, but it is what it is.