DON SLAMS REPUBLICAN’TS
President Trump on Thursday escalated his attacks on his party’s leaders — berating them for making a “mess” of his stalled legislative agenda.
Trump claimed that he had told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to link passage of legislation raising the debt ceiling to a measure on veterans affairs that he signed into law on Aug. 12.
“I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
“They didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems hold- ing them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!”
The Treasury Department, already using “extraordinary measures” to pay America’s bills on time, says the limit on the amount the federal government can borrow must be raised by Sept. 29.
The issue is one of the mustpass measures Congress will take up when members return on Sept. 5 from their August recess; another is a spending bill.
Lawmakers have about 12 working days from when they return to approve spending measures to keep the government open.
Trump on Tuesday threatened a shutdown if Congress fails to cough up the cash for his long- promised Mexican-border wall.
Trump — who’s planning to leave Washington Friday afternoon to spend the weekend at Camp David — also ramped up his beef with McConnell, attacking him for the Senate’s failure to repeal ObamaCare.
“The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed! That should NEVER have happened!” the president tweeted.
The slam came just a day after both the White House and McConnell’s office said they two were on the same page on tax reform and the debt ceiling.
Ryan (R-Wis.) insisted Congress will “pass legislation to
make sure that we pay our debts,” adding, “I’m not worried that’s not going to get done because it’s going to get done. . . For me, it’s really important the president succeeds, because if he succeeds then the country succeeds.”
McConnell did not respond to Trump’s comments. But during an appearance earlier this week with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, McConnell said, “There is zero chance, no chance, we won’t raise the debt ceiling.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders would not say whether Trump stood by his statement calling for a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t fund a border wall.
Asked why he was looking for taxpayers’ money when he had repeatedly vowed that Mexico would pay for it, she replied that Trump “hasn’t said they’re not.”
Meanwhile, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, insisted there’s “nothing crazy’’ about Trump — saying the president’s attack tweets are part of a thought-out strategy.
Speaking on MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt show, he said Trump is “not the first president to use the bully pulpit to try to push the country in a particular direction.”
Graham, who has been critical of Trump, said the president went a bit “nuts’’ in his Charlottesville comments. But he praised Trump’s Afghanistan speech as “excellent.’’