GOP leaders standing up to president
WASHINGTON — In the year since Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, party leaders have been reluctant to challenge a man who has formed a tight bond with conservative voters, even when he upset party orthodoxies and the norms of presidential behavior.
Yet by last week, the reticence was breaking down. A convergence of contentious issues, as well as embarrassing infighting and shake-ups at the White House, had a number of Republicans in open resistance to President Trump on many fronts.
The most dramatic moment came early Friday, when Sen. John McCain, an ailing war hero and onetime Republican presidential candidate, joined two other dissidents, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, to cast the deciding votes killing a scaled-back plan to dismantle tenets of the Affordable Care Act — and with it, perhaps, Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare. But the signs of resistance went further.
Nearly every Republican in Congress voted with Democrats last week to approve legislation tying the president’s hands on a major foreign policy issue, making it harder for him to ease sanctions against Russia given lawmakers’ concerns about Trump’s friendly posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. Late Friday, the White House said Trump intends to sign the legislation.
Since Wednesday, some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff have pushed back at Trump’s announcement on Twitter of a ban on transgender people in the military. The critics, including McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and an array of conservative senators, objected both to the substance of the ban — which threatened the status of thousands of active-duty service members — and to the way in which it was unveiled.
Perhaps the most broad opposition came in response to Trump’s continued public humiliation of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Congressional conservatives, who served with Sessions when he was in the Senate, delivered clear messages to Trump in Sessions’ defense.
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Trump would have “holy hell to pay” if he fired Sessions, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned that he would refuse to hold hearings this year to confirm a new attorney general.
Graham went further: If Trump tries to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice, it could spell “the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.”
“What he’s interjecting is turning democracy upside down,” the senator said.
Political veterans and GOP critics say Trump’s seeming inability to focus on his policy agenda, amid the distractions of investigations, media baiting and staff dysfunction, leave him little leverage with Congress. Beyond that, his threats against some Republicans and shows of disloyalty toward allies like Sessions give lawmakers little faith that Trump will back them if they need political cover for tough votes.
“Trump’s approval rating is in the 30s, he uses his bully pulpit to beat up on staff, and he’s got no policy agenda,” said Rory Cooper, a former Republican leadership aide and George W. Bush administration official who’s been a Trump critic. “President Trump’s closing argument on health care was that his staff and attorney general are not trusted. It’s clear ... members of Congress have no support or leadership from the White House.”
Many conservatives had been willing to put up with Trump’s erratic governance in the hopes he could at least deliver on longstanding conservative priorities.
But Friday’s defeat on the health care measure, after seven years of GOP promises to repeal Obamacare, left many despairing that other promises, especially on a tax overhaul, could be imperiled.
“The President told everyone that only he could do the job, and he would drain the swamp,” wrote Erick Erickson, an influential conservative radio host and blogger. “Instead, he’s dammed up the swamp, put a party boat on it, and has turned his attention to Twitter.”
Trump, as he often does, blamed Democrats. But he upbraided Republicans, too, Friday, on Twitter and in a speech in Long Island that was supposed to be about curbing criminal gangs.
GOP lawmakers have walked a careful line with Trump throughout his first six months — siding with him on many issues and withholding criticism on others, while disagreeing at times to show independence.
But the health care bill proved more complicated to navigate. Polls showed GOP efforts at repeal were unpopular, including among some conservatives, and prominent Republican governors were strongly opposed. Yet the party had promised “repeal and replace” since 2010.
John Weaver, a former longtime political consultant to McCain, said of the senator’s break with Trump on the health care bill, after two earlier votes in support, “I don’t think he took any joy in it.”
“But,” he said, “I think he wanted to send a clear signal that what’s happening in the White House is not normal and what’s happening in the Congress is not normal.”
GOP critics accuse Trump and his administration officials of combining arrogance with ineptitude, especially in how they threatened wavering senators such as Murkowski and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller. Murkowski suggested to the media that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke threatened federal funding to her state, which is heavily dependent on it. That was striking, because she chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which oversees Zinke’s department. But she held fast.
“Who ever heard of a Cabinet secretary threatening the chairman of the oversight committee of his department?” Weaver said. “It’s like ‘Dumb and Dumber’ merged with ‘The Godfather’ here.”