President says GOP incumbents will get his support this fall
THURMONT, Md. — President Trump says he’s done campaigning for insurgents challenging incumbent Republican members of Congress.
Trump told reporters after meeting GOP House and Senate leaders at Camp David Saturday night that he’s planning a robust schedule of campaigning for the 2018 midterm elections and that includes involvement in the Republican primaries. He’ll campaign for incumbents, he said, and “anybody else that has my kind of thinking.”
But after a stinging loss in Alabama, Trump said he’s done supporting challengers, declaring: “I don’t see that happening.” Trump had supported Roy Moore after he won the GOP primary. Moore’s defeat in the subsequent special election handed Democrats another seat in the Senate.
Trump spent much of Friday and Saturday morning hashing out his 2018 agenda with GOP House and Senate leaders, top White House aides and select Cabinet members at the presidential retreat at Camp David. He described the sessions as “perhaps transformative in certain ways.”
A long list of high-stakes topics were on the agenda, from national security and infrastructure to the budget and 2018 midterm election strategy. Though Democrats were not included in the discussions, the leaders — some dressed casually in jeans, khakis and sweaters — said they were optimistic that more Democrats would be working with Republicans.
“We hope that 2018 will be a year of more bipartisan cooperation,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, predicting a “significant number of Democrats” would be interested in supporting Trump’s agenda.
It’s a reflection of reality: Republicans hold a razorthin majority in the Senate and will need Democrats’ support to push through most legislation. It’s unclear, however, the extent to which Trump is willing to work with Democrats to achieve that goal.
Trump appeared Saturday to back away from efforts to overhaul the welfare system, which just weeks ago had been identified as one of the White House’s top two legislative priorities, along with a massive infrastructure investment plan.
McConnell had argued that welfare reform was a no-go given Democratic opposition. And Trump appeared to have come around.
“It’s a subject that’s very dear to our heart,” Trump said. “We’ll try and do something in a bipartisan way. Otherwise, we’ll be holding it for a little bit later.”
Republicans are eager to build on the victory achieved late last year with the overhaul of the nation’s tax code. But the need to work with Democrats on a spending package, for instance, is sure to whip up opposition from many conservatives to a hopedfor catchall spending bill slated for next month.
In this year’s midterm elections, Republicans are at risk of losing the majority they’ve held in the House since 2011, and could also lose seats in the Senate, though many more Democratic incumbents are up for re-election this year.