Trump backers make sure he’s not to blame
And this bill is a reflection of just that ...”
It’s interesting when people who insist that Trump is the greatest negotiator in history and the most farsighted threedimensional chess player since Spock also insist that he got rolled. But that is the new party line, apparently, and it must be toed. “The president was really sold a bill of goods here,” Trump confidante Chris Ruddy told The Washington Post.
There’s just one problem: It’s a lie. Or, to be more charitable, it’s untrue, even if those saying it believe it (in some cases, no doubt, because that’s what Trump tells them).
A source who was involved in drafting the bill tells me that the White House was in the loop on the negotiations. Trump’s legislative affairs director, Marc Short, signed off on the deal — and seemed to be as surprised as anyone by the veto threat. The president was briefed on the major pieces all along. And let’s not forget: Trump agreed to, lobbied for and signed into law the budget framework for the legislation in February.
This stabbed-in-the-back narrative — Dolchstoss in German — is not merely a cynical excuse for letting Trump off the hook. It also lays essential groundwork for Trump to escape blame if the GOP loses the House in the 2018 midterms.
It’s worth recalling the political climate the week before the omnibus was released. Democrat Conor Lamb had just won a special House election deep in Pennsylvania’s Trump country, and the air was thick with predictions that the GOP would get crushed in November. Despite a booming economy, anti-Trump sentiment was fueling a Democratic wave.
The Dolchstoss myth solves that problem. Amy Kremer, co-founder of the super PAC Women Vote Trump, and countless others have insisted that betrayal — not Trump — is why the GOP will lose in November.
Conservative discontent over the omnibus spending bill will surely make things harder for the GOP, and for the president. But the most important priority has been saved: the ability to say Trump is not to blame.