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EXCELLENT NEWS: U.S. government under Trump is in chaos…

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: August 26, 2017, 05:19:53 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Trump distances himself from GOP lawmakers
to avoid blame if agenda stalls


According to advisers, Trump is railing against Republicans because he thinks it will help
protect him politically if the GOP loses the House. But Trump could face greater peril
than a difficult 2020 election: a Democratic majority eager to pursue impeachment.


By PHILIP RUCKER, SEAN SULLIVAN and MIKE DeBONIS | 8:15PM EDT - Thursday, August 24, 2017

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) speaks during the Kentucky Farm Bureau's Country Ham Breakfast on Thursday. — Photograph: Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) speaks during the Kentucky Farm Bureau's Country Ham Breakfast
on Thursday. — Photograph: Timothy D. Easley/Associated Press.


PRESIDENT TRUMP is strategically separating himself from Republicans in Congress, an extraordinary move to deflect blame if the GOP agenda continues to flounder.

Trump deepened the fissures in the party on Thursday when he accused the top two leaders on Capitol Hill of mismanaging a looming showdown over the nation's borrowing authority. Republican lawmakers and aides responded to the president's hostility with broadsides and warnings of their own.

Frustrated by months of relative inaction at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and emboldened by his urge to disrupt the status quo, Trump is testing whether his own political following will prove more potent and loyal than that of his party and its leaders in both houses of Congress.

The growing divide comes at an inopportune moment for Washington, however. In addition to having to raise the debt ceiling to avoid a fiscal crisis, Republicans face September deadlines to pass a spending bill to avert a government shutdown, as well as pressure to fulfill a key Trump campaign promise to rewrite the nation's tax laws.

Behind the scenes, some Republican staff members described a more functional relationship between aides and lawmakers on Capitol Hill and White House officials. But in public, Trump is waging war against lawmakers. With a pair of morning tweets, he said he asked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Republican-Wisconsin) to include a debt-ceiling increase in a recent veterans bill.

“I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval,” he wrote. “They … didn't do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy — now a mess!”

In a later tweet, the president slammed McConnell for not being able to pass a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. “That should NEVER have happened!” he wrote.

Trump is railing against Republicans because he thinks it will help him politically down the road, for instance during a 2020 re-election bid, said one outside adviser to the White House.

If Republicans lose the House in the 2018 mid-term elections, as several White House advisers have warned the president, Trump can say, “See, I told you these guys wouldn't get anything done. I've been saying this for months. They're not following my agenda,” said the adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

Roger Stone, an ally of and former political adviser to Trump, put it this way: “The Trump brand and the Republican brand are two different things. What happened the last time the establishment tried to face him down? They got crushed.”

If Republicans lose the House, however, Trump could face greater peril than a difficult 2020 election: a Democratic majority eager to pursue impeachment and with subpoena power to conduct investigations.

For many GOP lawmakers, the justification for not fully breaking from Trump has been the promise of trying to salvage key parts of the party's agenda. But now, they are increasingly resigning themselves to the reality that they will be largely on their own. One Senate GOP aide likened it to “being handed the keys to the car.”

As a result, they have grown increasingly hostile toward the president.

“It doesn't help at this point, with a September coming up that is very consequential, to be throwing rocks at one another,” said Representative Tom Cole (Republican-Oklahoma). He added: “You don't, I think, do a lot of good by torching your teammates, particularly by name, individually.”

Said the Senate GOP aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid: “The sense you get is ‘We're going to have to figure this out’. We're just going to assume we're not going to get any help from the White House.”

Some White House aides have shown little sympathy toward GOP lawmakers who have made harsh remarks about Trump. Asked on Thursday to respond to recent comments by Senator Bob Corker (Tennessee) doubting the president's competence and stability to lead, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded, “I think that's a ridiculous and outrageous claim and doesn't dignify a response from this podium.”

The relationship between Trump and McConnell, meanwhile, has become increasingly acerbic in recent weeks, in private and public. But as details have surfaced in news reports, McConnell has tried to project unity even as some Republicans have said tensions are still raw.

In remarks on Thursday morning at the Kentucky Farm Bureau's annual Country Ham Breakfast, McConnell praised the president and his administration for making strides on regulatory reform, the Supreme Court and looking out for rural Americans.

But he acknowledged differences on trade, saying he was “a little concerned” about some of Trump's protectionist rhetoric. He also cracked a joke that underscored the challenges he faces with a narrow majority in the Senate.

“I'm often asked, ‘What is being the majority leader of the Senate like?’” he said. “The best answer I've been able to think of is, ‘It's a little bit like being a groundskeeper at a cemetery. Everybody's under you, but nobody's listening. That's what you get with 52-48’.”

McConnell sees a 2018 Senate map ripe with opportunities to expand the GOP majority. For this reason, Republicans in his orbit have been particularly pained by Trump's attacks against Senator Jeff Flake (Republican-Arizona), a critic of the president who is up for re-election. They see the leader of their party, Trump, potentially sabotaging a chance to make it easier to pass the legislation he has complained about stalling.

The Trump administration has warned that Congress must raise the federal debt limit before October to avert a fiscal crisis. The government spends more money than it brings in through revenue, and it borrows money to cover the difference by issuing debt.

During an event in Everett, Washington, on Thursday, Ryan said he is confident that Congress will raise the debt limit and avoid a federal default.

“We pay our debts in this country, and we'll continue to do so,” he said. “I'm not worried that's going to get done, because it's going to get done.”

Ryan acknowledged discussions about attaching the debt issue to the veterans bill, but said the maneuver ultimately “wasn't available to us.”

Several House aides expressed exasperation during Thursday about Trump's claim regarding that proposal. They called that a misrepresentation of what had actually happened: White House and congressional aides had informally discussed the possibility that the Senate could attach a debt-ceiling extension to a House-passed veterans bill in late July, but it was never clear that the Senate would act before the House was scheduled to break for the summer — and many conservative House Republicans had warned GOP leaders not to pursue the maneuver.

Trump's threat this week to shut down the government if a spending bill to keep it running past the end of next month does not include funding to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border has compounded worries about the September to-do list.

“We don't need a government shutdown. That never ends well,” Flake told Fox News Channel on Thursday. “We don't save money doing it.”

The House Freedom Caucus stands to play a pivotal role in the fall's legislative drama. On one hand, the bloc of hard-liners has been among the most fervent backers of Trump's agenda, and its top leader, Representative Mark Meadows (North Carolina), frequently consults with the president. On the other hand, the caucus and other conservatives have been reluctant to compromise on their principles to accomplish it — at least not without a fight.

“Republicans control the House, Senate, and White House,” Representative Mark Walker (North Carolina), a member of the Republican Study Committee, wrote in an opinion piece published this month. “Any legislation signed into law needs to reflect unified government.”

Congressional Democrats are expected to stand firmly in opposition to Trump's attempt to secure more federal funding for the border wall, as they did in the spring during similar spending talks.

On the debt limit, Democrats are taking a more hands-off approach, thinking the issue is entirely up to Republicans to resolve, given that in the past they called for spending reductions to be coupled with any debt-limit increases.

Some congressional aides are anticipating that Trump will hold a White House meeting with top House and Senate leaders shortly after lawmakers return from their recess.

If a meeting is held, it would be the first face-to-face exchange between Trump and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California) since the president hosted a cocktail reception for top lawmakers in late January. The last time he saw Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (Democrat-New York) in person was the day after that reception, at a meeting about Supreme Court nominees.

Some Republicans hope that private negotiations on tax reform, the debt ceiling and keeping the government running won't be weighed down by ugly public feuds.

One senior Republican involved in the process said on Thursday that a relatively drama-free extension of the debt limit and a resolution to keep the government open until the end of the year are both likely to pass next month, with discussions about a border wall pushed into the next round of budget negotiations.

A second Republican, who has spoken with the president, said on Thursday that Trump sees benefits from fighting GOP leaders but is not yet convinced that a showdown over a wall in September is necessary and is open to hearing options about how to proceed. The Republicans spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

Still, the long-term political upside that many in Trump's inner circle see in going after congressional Republicans and the hard-line stances Trump is fond of taking are expected to complicate the delicate talks. They also raise the possibility that Trump will never ease up in his attacks.

“This is where the base already was. They hate Washington,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser. He added: “They don't need the president to tell them that Congress isn't doing its job. They already understand that.”


Ed O’Keefe, Damian Paletta and Robert Costa contributed to this report.

• Philip Rucker is the White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. He previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House, and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. He joined The Post in 2005 as a local news reporter.

• Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

• Mike DeBonis covers Congress and national politics for The Washington Post. He previously covered D.C. politics and government from 2007 to 2015.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Can Trump actually shut down the government over wall funding?

 • Shutdown update: Experts say it's more likely than not to happen

 • VIDEO: Trump-McConnell tension bursts into the open

 • VIDEO: With a jam-packed agenda, Congress isn't on board with Trump's shutdown threat

 • Trump: I pass a lot of bills. Also, the Democrats won't let me pass bills.

 • Trump slams another Republican senator, warning Bob Corker that ‘Tennessee not happy!’

 • The Daily 202: Trump's border wall brinkmanship may leave Republicans in Congress holding the bag


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-distances-himself-from-gop-lawmakers-to-elude-blame-if-agenda-stalls/2017/08/24/f5ec44a8-88e1-11e7-a94f-3139abce39f5_story.html
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #1 on: August 26, 2017, 05:20:46 pm »


I guess that's what happens when the Prez is a stupid RETARD and his government are a bunch of MORONS, eh?
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Donald
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« Reply #2 on: August 26, 2017, 05:41:52 pm »

...yup Winnie is looking a bit like a gutless kiwirail worker


Winston knows that a TV debate without him will cost him at the polls
by AS on August 26, 2017 at 3:30pm


New Zealand First is disappointed that both TVNZ and TV3 have again allowed themselves to be pushed into the “old school” first-past-the-post mode at election time.


 
“Their decision making on election debate participants reflects the fact they have been heavied to stick with the past, despite MMP being here for 21 years,” says New Zealand First Leader and Northland MP Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“Both have been bullied into running televised debates with only the two old parties, Labour and National.

“Contrast that with the UK elections and the BBC telling Prime Minister Theresa May that they were going to hold a multi-party leaders’ debate whether she turned up or not.


“How can it be fair that a procession of Labour Party leaders are able to force television into doing things the old parties’ way?

“The voices of the parties that would challenge both Labour and National are being shut out – especially around issues they have both failed on, for example, the housing crisis and mass immigration.

He has a point.  But he also knows that giving him equal time on that kind of platform will be only advantageous to NZ First.   Remember when Peter Dunne was all gone for love or money and then he turned “the worm” by just sounding sensible for a few minutes?   It earned him another decade in parliament.

With current polling, 80% of the voters will get to see a debate for one of the parties they support.

But it does leave the others out in the cold.

As viewers, we probably are poorer for not seeing Winston, Gareth and Hone duke it out for electoral crumbs.

As for Winston’s parting shot….

“As for Mr Seymour’s nonsense, his hysteria is understandable. Some polls have him losing in Epsom (according to Steven Joyce) and that means he will be gone from Parliament and so will ACT, that is, bye-bye chihuahua.”

 
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2017, 01:55:05 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Trump looks to 2020 but a more immediate peril looms:
Democratic control, and impeachment power, in the House.


The president is distancing himself from Hill Republicans to inoculate himself
from blame for mid-term losses. He may be helping Democrats take the House.


By PAUL KANE | 10:00AM EDT - Saturday, August 26, 2017

President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky). — Photographs: Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky). — Photographs: Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.

SOME OF President Trump's advisers want him to bet his political future on a strategy that was most recently used by one of his most bitter rivals: President Bill Clinton.

As he picks fights with his own party's congressional leaders, Trump is adopting his own version of “triangulation”, trying to forge a separate and distinct identity from both Republicans and Democrats. These advisers believe that dysfunction on Capitol Hill is likely to continue and that the further away Trump is positioned from the gridlock, the better his political standing will be heading toward his own re-election campaign in 2020.

“It's right out of the Bill Clinton playbook. Triangulation is something that he perfected,” Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, told The Washington Post's Philip Rucker this week.

The key difference is timing, and that's what makes Trump's bid, for now, so much more risky than what Clinton did as he prepared for his 1996 re-election campaign. Clinton's move away from congressional Democrats came after a brutal 1994 mid-term election that gave Republicans full control of the Capitol.

Trump is making a pre-emptive break with his would-be congressional allies barely seven months into office. This comes more than a year ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections and at a moment when his party has control of both the House and Senate.

And he's doing it in a scathingly personal manner, attacking congressional Republicans nearly daily through social media and at public rallies.

Trump's advisers contend that the strategy will inoculate him from blame if Republicans lose big-time next year. But what they don't seem to take into account is that constantly blaming GOP leaders for their failures could depress conservative turnout next year and ensure a Democratic takeover, at least in the House, which current election ratings place within closer reach of Democratic control than the Senate.

And that scenario presents far greater peril for Trump than mere blame for electoral losses. A Democratic House majority would have the power to move on impeachment proceedings. The gavel of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee would go to Representative Elijah E. Cummings (Democrat-Maryland), a shrewd operator who would have subpoena power to go after the president's personal taxes and peruse how much the Trump Organization is benefiting from foreign governments staying at his hotel properties.

And forget about funding for a wall along the Mexican border: Democrats running the House Appropriations Committee would not even entertain that idea.

Some of Trump's advisers have cautioned him about the possibility of impeachment proceedings. But others view this internecine fighting with Republicans as the best course.

“No one likes the Congress. No one likes the Republican or Democratic leadership. He puts the blame for inaction where it belongs,” Roger Stone, an outside agitator who remains close to Trump, told Rucker.

Trump has put that strategy to work almost every morning during the past couple of weeks by using his Twitter account to attack Republicans on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) has been the most frequent target lately, after coming up one vote short of extending the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Over the past few days, he found a new foil in Senator Bob Corker (Reublican-Tennessee), lashing out at the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his comments questioning whether Trump could ever succeed.

There is some evidence that the public distinguishes Trump from both parties. In late spring, just 38 percent of the public believed that Trump is “in touch with the concerns of most people”, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

But for the Republican Party, that number drops to 32 percent, and just 28 percent of Americans believe that the Democratic Party is “in touch” with average citizens.

“They are equally hated in the country,” Stone said.

The irony of Trump adopting a Bill Clinton strategy is rich. At his lowest moment in the 2016 campaign, after The Washington Post revealed Trump's 2005 comments bragging about unwanted sexual advances, Trump pointed the finger at Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs and brought some of Clinton's accusers to one of his debates against Hillary Clinton.

Clinton survived his scandals — and even an impeachment — in part because he maintained strong personal relationships with many congressional Democrats, never openly antagonizing them the way Trump does with fellow Republicans.

In the run-up to the 1996 election, Clinton signed a Republican-drafted bill setting time limits on federal welfare benefits and pushed pet conservative causes such as uniforms in public schools. In his second term, he cinched a stringent budget deal with House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Republican-Georgia) and normalized trade relations with China.

But on some core party issues such as protecting Medicare and Social Security, Clinton fought Republicans and beat them. He campaigned for Democrats when they asked, raised gobs of money for their political committees and did the little personal things including inviting them out to play golf.

Those close bonds paid dividends during the 1998-99 impeachment effort, as Democrats rallied behind Clinton. Not a single Senate Democrat supported any of the articles of impeachment during a trial that ended in deadlock.

It's too early to know if Democrats would move toward impeachment if they won the House majority next year. But they could wreak havoc on Trump's agenda and shed light on his personal finances.

Cummings would become a national figure overnight, capable of launching investigations and holding televised hearings that would probably be very damaging. Any bold Trump agenda items would be blocked by House Democrats, who would force legislative compromises that would crush conservative spirits.

Democrats would force Trump into legislative compromises that would dispirit conservatives base voters for the GOP.

Those prospects would seem to compel Trump to work with Republicans now to protect their majorities next year. Yet some advisers believe that Trump should keep training his fire on Republicans, which would be better for his own independent brand. “Run against the elite leadership of both parties,” Stone said.

“If we have a majority in both houses and we can't cut taxes and we can't repeal Obamacare, then shame on us,” Bennett said.

The bill for that shame could come due in November 2018.


• Paul Kane is The Washington Post's senior congressional correspondent and columnist. His column about the 115th Congress, @PKCapitol, appears throughout the week and on Sundays.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Here's how impeachment works

 • Enraging his critics, Trump gives new meaning to the Friday night news dump

 • Trump distances himself from GOP lawmakers to avoid blame if agenda stalls


https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-looks-to-2020-but-a-more-immediate-peril-looms-democratic-control-and-impeachment-power-in-the-house/2017/08/25/c4fe5046-89dd-11e7-a50f-e0d4e6ec070a_story.html
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