President Trump Signaled He’s Ready to Go to War
President Donald Trump may have thought he knew how bad the situation in Washington, D.C., had become when he decided to run for office two years ago, but over the course of the past two months, he’s discovered it’s much worse.
The past two weeks, in particular, have likely been particularly demoralizing.
So, on one hand, it may seem understandable why he’s lashing out at those who prevented him from fulfilling his campaign promise to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” But, he’s clearly signaled he’s willing to go to war with the wrong people.
Thursday morning, he threw down the gauntlet by tweeting:
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!
Later in the day, he went after specific legislators:
If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform.
And:
Where are @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador? #RepealANDReplace #Obamacare
There’s just one problem. As it currently exists, the American Health Care Act—the GOP leadership’s legislation to begin the process of repeal and replace—would have failed by about 100 votes on the Republican side. The conservative Freedom Caucus counts only about three dozen in its membership, and many of them were actually going to vote for the legislation.
By going after conservatives, a major contributor to his election victory in November, he threatens to derail his own presidency. Already, news outlets that largely supported him in 2016—The Washington Times, The Daily Caller and even Breitbart News—are beginning to turn negative toward his administration.
Breitbart reported Friday morning:
A sophisticated analysis of polling data shows that the House Freedom Caucus saved the GOP’s House majority from a huge electoral backlash by helping to defeat the House Speaker Paul Ryan’s alternative to Obamacare, says Chris Wilson, head of WPA Research.
The “House Freedom Caucus members held the line, and the data show that is precisely what their constituents wanted,” he wrote in a report, titled “Analytics shows HFC saved GOP on Health Care.”
If you don’t think White House Senior Counselor Steve Bannon doesn’t have at least a little sway with Breitbart News, you’re kidding yourself. This begs the question of whether or not the president is listening to his closest advisers right now.
As long as the adviser’s last name isn’t Priebus, he should be.
Even his biggest cheerleader in the media, FOX News’ Sean Hannity, says the president is making the wrong move:
Now in my opinion, it’s not the Freedom Caucus that’s responsible for the GOP failure in this case to repeal and replace Obamacare. Now this legislation was flawed from the beginning. It was created behind closed doors. Not one single member saw the bill until it was rolled out. And that made it a disaster.
Now I don’t know who’s telling the White House to focus their anger on the Freedom Caucus, but I do think it’s misplaced. Because the Freedom Caucus, I’ve talked to them, they want to make a deal, and they want the win for the president and the country. So my advice tonight to Speaker Ryan and to Congress is simple. House leadership, you need to get all the differing factions in your caucus together.
Get them together with senators like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, Mitch McConnell, Secretary Price. I’ve said this before. Get all the factions, the moderates, the Tuesday Group, the Study Group, the Freedom Caucus, get everybody in a room, lock the door, order pizza, get beer, get cupcakes, I don’t care … get a consensus bill like you’ve been promising the country for eight years, and get it done and get it on the president’s desk.
That’s some pretty sound advice. But, the biggest danger is that the president becomes so frustrated with Republican in-fighting that he walks away from them and begins negotiating with Democrats. That would be an absolute disaster, not only for his presidency, but for the entire nation.
It’s time for all of us to start praying over our president, our elected representatives, and our government—a key responsibility we each hold biblically. This is just further evidence that our job as voters didn’t end on Nov. 8 or Jan. 20. {eoa}
