President Trump’s “excessive expectations” for legislative victories in Republican-controlled Congress are frustrating Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Attendees at a Rotary Club meeting in Kentucky gathered on Monday to hear Mr. McConnell explain why Republican lawmakers have been unable to deliver major legislative accomplishments for the president. The senator pushed back against the perception that his leadership and colleagues are inept by focusing on “the complexity of legislating.”
“I’d ask for a show of hands, but I know everybody’s saying, ’been there, haven’t done anything,’ which I find extremely irritating — and I’m going to tell you why,” the senator said. “A Congress goes on for two years. Part of the reason I think that the storyline is that we haven’t done much is because, in part, the president and others have set these early timelines about things [that] need to be done by a certain point.”
“Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before, and I think had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the Democratic process,” Mr. McConnell added, The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.
The lawmaker’s speech then turned towards the Republican Party’s efforts to partially repeal The Affordable Care Act, which imploded in late July after a 51-49 vote. Senators John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska rejected the bill.
“What I am asking of you is to judge this Congress when it finishes, how much have we done to make America competitive again and to grow again,” Mr. McConnell said. “Our constituents have suffered through an awful lot under Obamacare. We thought they deserved better. It’s why I and many of my colleagues did as we promised and voted to repeal this failed law.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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