Republicans worry chaos hurts agenda
President Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington have shaken the confidence of their supporters after a punishing and self-inflicted series of setbacks that have angered activists, left allies slackjawed and reopened old fissures on the right.
A sequence of disappointments and blunders has rattled Trump’s governing coalition, like Trump’s attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions; a tirade by his new communications chief, Anthony Scaramucci; and the collapse of conservative-backed health care legislation.
Trump remains overwhelmingly popular with Republicans, but among party loyalists and proTrump activists around the country, there are new doubts about the tactics he has employed, the team he has assembled and the fate of the populist agenda he promised to deliver in partnership with a Republicancontrolled Congress.
“There is a significant amount of justified frustration, particularly with the Senate,” said Robin Hayes, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, alluding to the health care defeat.
Some Republican grassroots activists cheered the ouster Friday of Reince Priebus, a former party chairman, as White House chief of staff, and his replacement with John Kelly, a retired Marine general. “Priebus was in over his head,” said Ed Martin, a former Missouri Republican Party chairman. “General Kelly is battle tested.”
But Hayes said that while a strong majority of Republican voters adored Trump, there are doubts about other administration advisers. Hayes said that Scaramucci’s interview with The New Yorker magazine, in which he savaged several White House colleagues in sexually graphic terms, had shocked Republicans in his state.
“How does that help us get health care and tax reform and rebuilding the military?” Hayes said.
Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who has been critical of Trump, said meaningful policies will emerge from the White House only when the “chaos” in the administration abates. He said he was uncertain whether the shakeup of senior staff would have that effect.
Among the president’s legislative allies, too, there is a deepening sense of dread that presidential tweets and continuing chaos inside the West Wing will get in the way of efforts to lower taxes, crack down on immigration, overhaul trade policies and rethink the country’s foreign policy.