FACE TO FACE: President Trump is headed to Capitol Hill today, where he will meet with a Senate GOP conference that increasingly includes Republicans at odds with him.
Trump’s invitation comes from a friendly place. He was invited to visit the GOP Steering Committee, a subset of the conference traditionally run by conservatives that is led by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a top Trump ally.
All GOP senators can attend the group’s Wednesday lunch. Some typically skip it, though the president’s attendance on Wednesday may bring a full house.
Still, it’s not entirely clear if the GOP senators who have been most at odds with Trump over various issues, such as Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Bill Cassidy (La.), will attend.
Those three senators, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), on Tuesday voted for a War Powers Resolution effectively rebuking Trump on the Iran war.
Collins and Murkowski have frequently diverged from Trump on various issues, taking insults from the president in the process. Tillis has grown increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Trump since deciding against a run for reelection last summer.
Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, saw the president effectively end his Senate career when Trump backed another candidate in Cassidy’s primary. The same fate befell a fifth GOP senator, Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who recently complained of the chaos caused by Trump.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the former GOP leader, has also broken with Trump at times but is unlikely to attend the lunch because of a medical issue.
Scott invited Trump to address two major points of contention: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act and the Iran peace deal.
The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports the meeting comes at a pivotal moment in the relationship between the president and his party’s legislative leaders, who are bracing themselves for what could be a heated and unpredictable discussion with Trump after weeks of rising tensions and disagreements over strategy.
GOP senators tell Bolton that the repeated clashes have led to a major loss of trust for some in the party, especially as the White House has repeatedly blindsided Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other GOP leaders.
Members will have a chance to air those grievances when the president attends the Senate GOP Steering Committee lunch. The invitation to Trump by Scott came in a Friday phone call. It was a move some saw as undercutting the majority leader, who learned about the invitation after the fact from Scott.
“It’s probably Thune’s worst nightmare for many reasons. Donald Trump is so unpredictable, and Thune’s loyalty is to his conference and the Senate conference’s loyalty is to each other, it’s not to Donald Trump,” a Republican strategist told Bolton.
“Donald Trump is a complete wild card, and so anything can come out of this,” the strategist added.
Senate Republicans have grown frustrated at Trump’s relentless focus on the SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote and to show photo ID when casting a ballot. The president has pushed Thune to sidestep the filibuster or fire the Senate parliamentarian to overcome Democratic opposition to the bill, but the GOP leader has resisted those demands, arguing he lacks the votes.
Many Republicans want to move on from the bill after it failed five times on the floor, but the president remains insistent — even threatening to veto an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) if the bill is not attached to it, a nonstarter for the conference.
The preliminary Iran deal is also expected to come up at the meeting after Senate Republicans were frustrated last week when their requests for a briefing on the memorandum of understanding were ignored, leaving them unprepared to respond to criticism about the deal.
“When we’re five months out from a major election... you’ve got to be pitch-perfect, and you got to execute with precision,” Sen. Thom TiIlis (R-N.C.) said. “We can’t surprise the president, and the administration cannot surprise us. Every time we do that between now and November, we’re diminishing our chances of holding our majorities.”
Tillis, who has also frequently split with Trump, separately blasted the administration this week after U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro threatened to prosecute those accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the fullest extent of the law, drawing a contrast to Trump’s blanket pardons for those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I don’t know what’s worse to you, vandalizing a pool or assaulting a police officer?” Tillis said, adding, “You’ve let people that admitted to assaulting a police officer go and think I can take that person seriously? Nuh-uh.”
Several other issues have left senators blindsided recently, including the president’s sudden announcement that his nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, would not show up to his confirmation hearing.
Cornyn slammed the move, telling Semafor, “The president seems to revel in chaos, which is so different from any other leader that I’ve ever seen.”
Cornyn noted some Senate Republicans are feeling betrayed by the president, pointing to his own defeat in his primary runoff this year after Trump endorsed his opponent and accused the incumbent of being “very disloyal.” The senator said there was “no real reason” for those attacks “given my support for the president’s agenda.”
“When he endorsed my primary opponent, people realized you could never do enough to stop the president from endorsing your primary opponent. I think that destroyed what remained of any kind of trust,” he told Bolton.
▪ The Hill: Rick Scott circulates plan to avoid shutdown ahead of Trump meeting.
▪ Washington Examiner: Two Republicans vow to oppose action until SAVE Act passes.
▪ The Hill: GOP senator ousted by Trump pushes Social Security investment.
BICAMERAL REBUKE: The Senate narrowly approved a House-passed resolution directing Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran, after four Republican senators bucked their party by voting for it.
The upper chamber passed the war powers resolution by a 50-48 vote, with GOP Sens. Paul, Collins, Murkowski and Cassidy joining nearly all Democrats in voting in favor. Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) was the only Senate Democrat to vote against the resolution.
Since the measure is a concurrent resolution, it doesn’t need Trump’s signature. It also doesn’t have the force of law despite receiving approval in both chambers of Congress.
But the vote marks a further rebuke of the president in his oversight of the conflict with Iran. Four House Republicans previously joined all House Democrats to pass the resolution in the lower chamber earlier this month.
The measure’s passage comes two days after Trump threatened to resume bombing of Iran if it didn’t rein in its military proxies in Lebanon.
▪ The Hill: GOP divided over Vance rebuke of Israeli critics.
▪ The Hill: Trump defends Iran sanctions relief.
ADDRESSING THE SHORTFALL: Trump will also meet with defense contractors Wednesday as concerns rise that the U.S. munitions stockpile has dwindled.
The Wall Street Journal reported Trump summoned the heads of the largest defense firms and senior Pentagon officials to the White House to discuss increasing production. The meeting had been scheduled for earlier this month but was delayed because of negotiations to end the Iran war.
Trump previously met with contractors in early March, when he said they agreed to quadruple production of “exquisite class” weaponry. He has maintained weapons stockpiles are satisfactory, but defense analysts have warned the military has a finite number of interceptors, which take time to replenish.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also set to meet with House Republicans on Wednesday to brief them on the administration’s military funding goals.
HOLDING GROUND: Trump is doubling down on his claims that vandals are responsible for the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The president increased his estimate of the size of the cut in the pool’s base from 300 to 350 feet on Tuesday, alleging in a post on Truth Social that it was made with “a very sharp knife or razors.”
“It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition,” Trump said.
The Interior Department said Monday that five people have been arrested and it has issued citations to five others for allegedly vandalizing the pool. Trump increased the number Tuesday to six arrests and seven citations.
Members of the National Guard and U.S. Park Police started patrolling the Reflecting Pool as part of a crackdown Monday against the suspected vandalism. The pool has received widespread attention in recent days for algae growth that has turned the water green and cracks in the new blue paint that the Trump administration oversaw.
▪ The Hill: Attorney for former Olympian defends client.
▪ The Hill: Two more ducks found dead near pool.
No comments:
Post a Comment