TRUMP REDEFINES REPUBLICANS
President claims place at head of ‘earthquake’ to shake up country
It is Trump’s party, at least for now.
President Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night underscored how he has redefined the Republicans’ political base and their policy message on issues from trade to immigration to deficits to international alliances.
Though he struck a sunnier tone than he did in his inaugural address six weeks ago, when he warned darkly of “American carnage,” he continued to offer prescriptions for a nation that he warned was threatened with decline at home and dangers from abroad.
He led a political “earthquake” of American voters, he boasted. “They were united by one very simple but crucial demand, that America must put its own citizens first,” he declared, “because only then can we truly make America great again.”
Trump was cheered Friday when he spoke to CPAC, a conservative conclave he once viewed as so problematic that he canceled his appearance there during last year’s campaign. In the ornate House chamber Tuesday, Republican senators and representatives gave him repeated standing ovations, though only a handful had endorsed his candidacy before his nomination became inevitable. (Some of them didn’t do so even then.)
“I think it’s indisputable that (Trump) is the political head of the Republican Party.” Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union
when he spoke to CPAC, a conservative conclave he once viewed as so problematic that he canceled his appearance there during last year’s campaign. In the ornate House chamber Tuesday, Republican senators and representatives gave him repeated standing ovations, though only a handful had endorsed his candidacy before his nomination became inevitable. (Some of them didn’t do so even then.)
In a final sign that his hostile takeover of the GOP was complete: 84% of Republican-leaning voters in the Pew Research Center poll approve of the job Trump is doing in the White House, a level of support that nearly matches what Barack Obama received among Democrats at this point in his presidency in 2009 and is a bit better than the backing Ronald Reagan got among Republicans in 1981.
“In the first 30 days, it’s hard to think about how he could have cemented his relationship with the conservative heart and soul of the party any better,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors CPAC. “I think it’s indisputable that he is the political head of the Republican Party.”
That said, strains and a spiderweb of fractures in the GOP are apparent as Trump battles allegations about his campaign’s ties to Russia and outlines a budget plan. Before the president spoke Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that Trump’s proposal to slash State Department funding, an idea floated 24 hours earlier, probably couldn’t pass.
Congressional Republicans were roiled hours before the speech after TV anchors emerged from a luncheon with the president to report that a “senior administration official” told them Trump was open to negotiating a comprehensive immigration bill, language that typically indicates a path to legal status or even citizenship for undocumented workers.
There was no such conciliatory language in the president’s public remarks about dealing with the estimated 11 million illegal immi- grants in the USA. Instead, Trump reiterated his pledge to build a wall along the southwestern border and introduced guests he had invited to sit in the gallery who had seen family members killed by undocumented immigrants.
The longest ovation of the night was for the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, who was killed in a botched raid last month in Yemen.
In the 40 days of his tenure, President Trump has demonstrated the sway of executive action — ordering limits on new regulations and laying the groundwork for more aggressive deportation of undocumented immigrants — as well as the power of the bully pulpit. The Twitter account he uses has more than 25 million followers, enabling him to dominate hours of cable TV talk shows with a burst of 140 characters. Reaching his most consequential goals, including a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and an overhaul of the tax code, will require building congressional coalitions that include a nearly united Republican caucus, given the resistance of most Democrats.
Providing some details about what he wants to see in a big health care bill, Trump called on “all Democrats and Republicans in the Congress to work with us to save Americans from this imploding Obamacare disaster.”
Republicans applauded that line. Democrats didn’t.
In his election win, Trump made the Republican Party of Main Street and Wall Street also the party of working-class white voters who felt sidelined in a globalized economy. The GOP had long been the party of free trade; the new president denounces multilateral trade deals and pulled out of the Trans Pacific Partnership. House Speaker Paul Ryan has pursued a long crusade to get control of Social Security and Medicare costs, part of the traditional GOP focus on the deficit; the White House said Monday the president would keep his campaign promise not to touch those programs.
“Donald J. Trump has expanded the base, there’s no two ways about it,” said Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y. That, he said, is what put Trump in the White House and before a joint session of Congress.