Trump and Freedom Caucus turn on each other https://t.co/Esjbi57thy
President
Trump on Thursday used Twitter to rip into the conservative House
Freedom Caucus, which quickly returned fire as Republicans turned on
one another a week after the collapse of their ObamaCare repeal plan.
Trump
threatened to back primary election challengers to the Freedom Caucus
members who torpedoed the American Health Care Act, handing Trump a
stinging legislative loss in his administration’s first 100 days.
Trump
said the conservatives had “hurt the entire Republican agenda,”
lumping them in with Democrats he pledged to “fight” in the 2018
midterms.
The
Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't
get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!
— Donald
J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017
It’s
not the first time Trump has criticized the caucus, which doesn’t
publicly reveal its membership. But it was his most direct attack on
the group yet, and the first time he’d pledged to go after them at
the ballot box since the collapse of the repeal effort.
Conservatives
opposed to the ObamaCare repeal bill quickly fired back, criticizing
Trump for becoming a victim of Washington’s “swamp” and
reminding the White House that the healthcare plan it backed polled a
dismal 17 percent.
“It
didn’t take long for the swamp to drain President Trump,” tweeted
Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a Freedom Caucus member.
It
didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump. No shame,
Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment.
https://t.co/9bDo8yzH7I
— Justin
Amash (@justinamash) March 30, 2017
“Most
people don’t take well to being bullied,” he told reporters.
“It’s constructive in fifth grade. It may allow a child to get
his way, but that’s not how our government works.”
Rep.
Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), another conservative who opposed the House
GOP’s ObamaCare repeal bill, used a mocking tone to hit back at the
president over Twitter.
.@realDonaldTrump
it's a swamp not a hot tub. We both came here to drain it. #SwampCare
polls 17%. Sad! https://t.co/4kjygV2tdS
— Thomas
Massie (@RepThomasMassie) March 30, 2017
“We're
on his side,” Massie later told The Hill. “We just feel like he's
been misled on SwampCare.”
Freedom
Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said nothing as he sprinted
onto the House floor for the final votes of the week. And Rep. Raúl
Labrador (R-Idaho), a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and one
who is usually unafraid to speak his mind, refused to acknowledge
reporters' questions about Trump's tweet.
Labrador
later responded to Trump on Twitter.
@realDonaldTrump
Freedom Caucus stood with u when others ran. Remember who your real
friends are. We're trying to help u succeed.
— Raúl
R. Labrador (@Raul_Labrador) March 30, 2017
Rep.
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who also opposed the GOP bill and is a leading
voice among House conservatives, responded to Trump’s tweet by
saying the bill backed by the White House wouldn’t lower premiums,
wouldn’t fully repeal ObamaCare, and didn’t unite the GOP.
In
an interview on Fox News, he said the Freedom Caucus was trying to
help Trump, “but the fact is you’ve got to look at the
legislation. And it doesn’t do what we told the voters we were
going to do, and the American people understand that. That’s why
only 17 percent of the population supports this legislation.”
The
public infighting is unlikely to help Republicans get back on track
with their agenda.
While
Ryan said at a news conference that he understood why the president
was frustrated, in a separate interview he broke with Trump by
stating that he did not want to work with Democrats on healthcare.
Rep.
Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), a Trump ally and member of the centrist
Tuesday Group, affirmed at a meeting Wednesday that it will not meet
with the Freedom Caucus to negotiate changes to an ObamaCare
replacement bill.
“It
was just reiterated that next time one of those calls comes in [from
the Freedom Caucus], just hang up,” Collins said.
After
the healthcare bill was pulled from consideration on Friday, Ryan and
Trump both signaled they were ready to move on to other issues —
specifically tax reform.
This
week there have been suggestions, particularly from conservative
rank-and-file Republicans, that the party should return to
healthcare. But there has been no signs of progress in bridging
differences between the center and right of the GOP, and Ryan on
Thursday said a pause was likely necessary.
Trump’s
public slamming of the Freedom Caucus is unlikely to help rally
Republicans around a new healthcare push, and the caustic public
comments from conservatives will have much of the country waiting for
Trump to fire back.
Some
conservative media outlets have blamed Ryan and GOP leaders for
mishandling the ObamaCare fight.
Several
Freedom Caucus members echoed arguments that they were protecting
Trump from an unpopular bill.
“The
bill's polling at 17 percent," Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) said. “The
American people are not in support of this bill. And we represent
them, so we can do better.”
Rep.
Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member, said he’d
rather face a primary challenger than sacrifice his principles.
“If
a primary challenger would serve this country better than me I’m
certainly willing to entertain that,” he said. “I think we can
get along with the president. I think we’re the best friends the
president has in this situation.”
Franks
refused to criticize Trump for whipping support for the bill or
attacking conservatives for its failure.
“I
think Congress failed the president rather than the other way around,
and I can understand his frustration,” he said.
One
conservative interviewed by The Hill, who requested anonymity, said
he viewed Trump’s tweet as a negotiating tactic.
“They’re
just trying to add a little public pressure,” the source said. “We
see that as purely a negotiating tactic. Trump wants a win more than
anything else and he saw the healthcare bill as a political and
publicity failure, so there’s a double-incentive for him to pin the
blame on the Freedom Caucus folks for having obstructed it. I think
he’s seeing who will bend.”
In
another sign of possible fallout from last week, Ryan on Thursday
morning hosted more than a dozen conservative free-market and
pro-life leaders in his office, including Grover Norquist of
Americans for Tax Reform, Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative
Union and Doug Holtz-Eakin of American Action Forum.
Noticeably
absent from the meeting were any representatives from three outside
conservative groups that opposed the healthcare bill: FreedomWorks,
Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity.
The
Freedom Caucus has frequently irritated its colleagues in the GOP,
and Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) quit the group over the healthcare fight.
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) has said publicly he’s considering doing
the same.
Democrats,
for their part, welcomed the GOP infighting.
“It's
just a tweet,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), one of the group’s
newest members, told The Hill in an interview outside the Capitol.
At
that moment, fellow Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a centrist Democrat,
pulled up in a Subaru, rolled down her window and shouted at her
colleague tongue-in-cheek: “Hey Andy, did you see the president's
tweet this morning? He's coming after both of us!”
“You
know what," Biggs replied with a smile. "You guys want to
impeach him, and we don't.”
TheChurchMilitant: Sometimes anti-social, but always anti-fascist since 2005.
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