US President Donald Trump on Wednesday overruled congressional Republicans and his own Treasury secretary to cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government operating and raise the US’ debt limit.
The immediate goal was ensuring money for hurricane relief, but in the process, Trump brazenly rolled his own party’s leaders.
In deal-making mode, Trump sided with the Democratic leaders — “Chuck and Nancy,” as he amiably referred later to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — as they pushed for the three-month deal, brushing aside the urgings of Republican leaders and US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin for a much longer extension to the debt limit.
Republicans want that longer allowance to avoid having to take another vote on the politically toxic issue before next year’s congressional elections.
The session painted a vivid portrait of discord at the highest ranks of the Republican Party.
After spending last month angrily lobbing attacks at fellow Republicans, specifically targeting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the failure of healthcare legislation, Trump wasted little time once Congress came back this week in demonstrating his disdain for Republican House and Senate leaders charged with shepherding his agenda into law.
At first, in Wednesday’s Oval Office meeting, the Republicans lobbied for an 18-month debt ceiling extension, then 12 months and then six, but Trump waved them off.
As Mnuchin continued to press an economic argument in favor of a longer-term deal, Trump tired of it and cut him off mid-sentence.
At another point, the meeting lost focus when Ivanka Trump entered to raise an unrelated issue on childcare tax credits.
Details of the meeting were disclosed by several people briefed on the proceedings who spoke on condition of anonymity.
After the meeting, Donald Trump boarded a plane to North Dakota with Democratic US Senator Heidi Heitkamp in a bid to garner bipartisan support for tax legislation that Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are crafting on a purely partisan basis.
That continued the day of bizarre disconnects between Trump and the leaders of his party.
Trump called Heitkamp to the stage at his Dakota event and praised her as a “good woman.” She is to be running for re-election against a Republican in November next year.
Heitkamp later issued a statement saying she needs to know more about Trump’s tax plan before offering her support.
Aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters: “We had a very good meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.”
He did not mention Republicans McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who were also present.
“We agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, which they consider to be sacred, very important,” Trump said. “I think the deal will be very good.”
Barely an hour earlier, Ryan had slammed the Democrats’ demand for a three-month extension as “ridiculous and disgraceful.”
McConnell, in his own reserved fashion, did not sugar-coat what happened when he addressed reporters a short time later.
“In the meeting down at the White House, as I indicated, the president agreed with Senator Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi to do a three-month CR and a debt ceiling into December, and that’s what I will be offering based on the president’s decision,” McConnell said.
“CR” refers to a continuing resolution, which would extend existing government funding levels into mid-December, when the prospect of an enormous new round of dealmaking now looms.
Asked whether he was surprised to see Trump side with Democrats against his own party leadership, McConnell said: “Look, the president can speak for himself, but his feeling was we needed to come together, not create a picture of divisiveness at a time of genuine national crisis, and that was the rationale.”
However, Trump achieved the opposite.
“The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad,” US Senator Ben Sasse said on Twitter.
“Hopefully we’ll realize that negotiating with Democrats doesn’t normally produce outstanding results,” said US Representative Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
Late on Wednesday, with criticism pouring in from Republicans, Mnuchin made a rare appearance in the Air Force One press cabin, as Trump traveled back to Washington from North Dakota to defend the deal.
“Our No. 1 priority was getting money for Harvey. Let me very clear: That’s the president’s No. 1 agenda and we accomplished that,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin also said several times that the president could have had a one-year package, but did not want to lose the opportunity to raise military spending in new budget bills before then.
Aides to Schumer and Pelosi responded with incredulous disbelief to this claim.
The outcome was especially striking coming just a day after Trump announced he would be dismantling immigration protections for younger immigrants.
Taken together, Trump’s moves appeared to show little regard for the imperatives of his party leaders, and after the Republicans’ failure to pass long-promised legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, the events renewed questions about whether the party can summon the focus and unity to advance tax legislation, the next big item it wants to tackle.
However, White House officials said that putting other issues off until December cleared the decks for tax talks.
The deal struck on Wednesday at the White House promises to speed the US$7.9 billion Hurricane Harvey aid bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly on Wednesday, to Trump’s desk before disaster accounts run out later this week.
The debt ceiling and government funding extensions are to be attached.
The move also buys nearly three months, until Dec. 15, for Washington to try to solve myriad other issues, including more funding for the military, immigration and healthcare, and a longer-term increase in the government’s borrowing authority to avoid a first-ever default.
Adding the stopgap funding bill to the Harvey aid package would also immediately free about US$7 billion in additional disaster funds.
Schumer was as pleased in the aftermath as McConnell was dour.
“The bottom line is, the president listened to the arguments,” Schumer said. “We think we made a very reasonable and strong argument and, to his credit, he went with the better argument.”
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