Political fight puts priorities on hold
Trump may wait, betting on favorable election
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s decision to walk out of an infrastructure meeting with Democrats left lawmakers scrambling to assess whether the fallout would reach other White House priorities, including a pending trade deal with Canada and Mexico that the president hopes will replace NAFTA.
Fuming about Democratic investigations into his presidency, Trump refused to shake hands with Democrats on Wednesday and left the meeting. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused the president of throwing “a temper tantrum for us all to see.”
Trump disputed her account in a tweet late Wednesday.
“I was extremely calm yesterday with my meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, knowing that they would say I was raging, which they always do, along with their partner, the Fake News Media.”
President Donald Trump In a tweet
“Sadly, the only job the president seems to be concerned with is his own. He threatened to stop working with Democrats on all legislation unless we end oversight of his administration.”
Nancy Pelosi In a letter released to reporters Wednesday night
“This is not true. I was purposely very polite and calm, much as I was minutes later with the press in the Rose Garden,” Trump wrote. “Can be easily proven. It is all such a lie!”
Thursday morning, the president returned to that characterization of the truncated meeting between him, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
“I was extremely calm yesterday with my meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, knowing that they would say I was raging, which they always do, along with their partner, the Fake News Media,” the president tweeted. “Well, so many stories about the meeting use the Rage narrative anyway – Fake & Corrupt Press!”
Trump has indicated he’s prepared to push most of his legislative agenda off until after the 2020 election, a recognition that Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach consensus on much of anything as nearly two dozen Democratic presidential candidates barnstorm early primary states in the hunt for the nomination.
In a hastily arranged statement Wednesday in the Rose Garden, Trump said Washington could not be on an “investigations” track while pursuing legislation. “Let them play their games. We’re going to go down one track at a time,” Trump said of Democrats. “Let them finish up. And we’ll be all set.”
Ever since Democrats captured control of the House of Representatives in last year’s midterm election, much of Trump’s legislative agenda on immigration, funding for his border wall and health care has been aspirational.
Wednesday’s blowup left the status of several White House priorities uncertain.
“Sadly, the only job the president seems to be concerned with is his own,” Pelosi wrote in a letter released to reporters Wednesday night. “He threatened to stop working with Democrats on all legislation unless we end oversight of his administration.”
Trump needs Democratic support for his signature trade deal, the U.S.Mexico-Canada Agreement. If approved by Congress, that pact would allow Trump to honor a campaign pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
The deal faces a high hurdle in the Democratic-controlled House. The latest squabble makes its prospects even more doubtful, said Daniel Ujczo, an Ohio-based trade attorney who has followed developments surrounding the new trade deal.
“The only way for USMCA to get done is for everything to fall just right between the White House and Congress,” Ujczo said. “And I’ve seen no objective evidence that could happen. And this is yet another example. At the very least, this is adding delay to a process where we were already up against a tight timing window.”
Another potential issue: talks to fund the government after September and raise the nation’s debt ceiling. The White House and lawmakers were making progress this week on a twoyear agreement to avoid another government shutdown and the potential for a financial crisis if the government is forced to default on its debt.
In a series of late-night tweets last month, the president said Republicans would not vote on a plan to deal with health care until after the election. “Vote will be taken right after the Election when Republicans hold the Senate & win … back the House,” Trump tweeted.
As the president rolled out the broad outlines of a proposal last week to deal with legal immigration, he conceded that Democrats might not embrace his ideas.
“We will get it approved immediately after the election, when we take back the House, keep the Senate and, of course, hold the presidency,” Trump said. “One of the reasons we will win is because of our strong, fair and pro-America immigration policy.”