President Trump threatened political retribution Thursday against the conservatives who sank his health care overhaul, grouping the House Freedom Caucus with congressional Democrats as his political enemies in the 2018 elections.
The hard-line conservatives were some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent backers during last year’s campaign, but the president is furious at members who balked at his sales pitch for repealing and replacing Obamacare. Efforts to placate the Freedom Caucus scared off centrist Republicans during the debate, further embarrassing the president and dooming his first major legislative effort.
He hasn’t forgotten. And now he’s declaring war.
“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!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter.
The president’s missive set off a round of finger-pointing and underscored the deep fractures in a Republican Party that promised early wins on health care and tax reform but stumbled out of the starting blocks.
Rather than face a health care vote they knew they’d lose, Mr. Trump told House Speaker Paul D. Ryan to pull the legislation before a roll call on Friday, an embarrassing floor defeat that leaves the insurance markets and the GOP agenda in limbo.
SEE ALSO: Dave Brat doesn’t take Trump’s Freedom Caucus tweet as a threat
Mr. Ryan on Thursday said he shares Mr. Trump’s anger, because 90 percent of the GOP conference was on board with his plan.
“It’s very understandable that the president is frustrated that we haven’t gotten to where we need to go, because this is something we all said we would do,” Mr. Ryan said.
There were signs that the president, who warned last week that he had “learned a lot about loyalty” in the health care failure, is following through on his threat against lawmakers who crossed him.
Rep. Mark Sanford, South Carolina Republican, said Mr. Trump sent White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, a former Freedom Caucus member from South Carolina, to deliver a stark warning.
“The president asked me to look you square in the eyes and to say that he hoped that you voted ’no’ on this bill so he could run (a primary challenger) against you in 2018,’” Mr. Sanford said Mr. Mulvaney told him.
Mr. Sanford told The Post and Courier newspaper that Mr. Mulvaney made it clear he did not want to deliver the message but did so at Mr. Trump’s insistence.
SEE ALSO: Justin Amash suggests Trump has succumbed to ‘D.C. establishment’
“I’ve never had anyone, over my time in politics, put it to me as directly as that,” Mr. Sanford said.
Asked if the president’s growing feud with the Freedom Caucus would hurt his agenda, Dan Holler, communications director for the conservative Heritage Action for America, said, “The goal is to get good policy to the president’s desk. Conservatives want to make sure that happens.”
The fallout over the president’s loss on health care claimed a top White House official Thursday, as Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh decided to leave the new administration to help with outside groups to support Mr. Trump’s agenda.
Ms. Walsh, a close ally of White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, is departing to work as an adviser for a pro-Trump nonprofit group, America First Policies, as well as working with the Republican National Committee, where she served previously.
The move came after administration officials expressed frustration that Mr. Trump’s efforts to pass the health care bill lacked grass-roots support to pressure lawmakers in their districts.
A Republican close to the White House said the decision was mutual between Ms. Walsh and the president’s other top advisers, indicating that she was both frustrated by dysfunction in the West Wing and recognized the need for the administration to have stronger outside support.
“She can use her talents to the maximum ability,” the source said, instead of grappling with an inexperienced White House where the situation “changes every day.”
Mr. Ryan said he wants to revive the GOP effort on health care, which used arcane budget rules to get around a Democratic filibuster later on, although Mr. Trump is already hinting at cooperating with Democrats.
Democratic leaders told Mr. Trump they are ready to work on health reforms, but only if the GOP takes repeal of Obamacare off the table — something the White House has refused to do.
Mr. Ryan urged Mr. Trump not to fall in with Democrats, saying bipartisanship is a virtue, but not in this case.
“They’re not going to help us repeal Obamacare. That’s my point,” Mr. Ryan said.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Mr. Trump is looking for votes in Congress “wherever he can” to pass his bold agenda.
However, he said there are “some promising signs” that individual members of the Freedom Caucus won’t vote as a block and are willing to look at “the bigger picture” beyond their group.
But if Mr. Trump’s tweet was designed to gather support from the group, it backfired in some places.
Rep. Justin Amash said instead of sweeping out the quagmire of deals and influence-peddling that have driven Washington for years, Mr. Trump had allowed the swamp to drain him.
“No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment,” Mr. Amash, Michigan Republican and Freedom Caucus member, said on Twitter.
A coalition of Ohio conservatives backed up his rhetoric, though not his tone, saying the Freedom Caucus held out for the type of repeal effort that GOP candidates promised voters last year.
“We want to see you succeed in Making America Great Again! We appreciate much of what you have already done in the first few months of your administration,” the coalition wrote to Mr. Trump. “However, we respectfully ask you to stand with our conservative heroes in the Freedom Caucus, along with other conservatives in the House and Senate. These patriots are working to keep the campaign promises that you — and they — made to us.”
Reps. David Brat of Virginia and Jim Jordan of Ohio insisted the caucus was trying to help Mr. Trump to succeed.
“This bill doesn’t fully repeal Obamacare, this bill doesn’t lower premiums, and probably, most importantly, this bill doesn’t unite Republicans and the American people, as evidenced by the fact that only 17 percent of the country supports this legislation,” Mr. Jordan told Fox News. “We appreciate the president; we’re trying to help the president. But the fact is you’ve got to look at the legislation. And it doesn’t do what we told the voters we were gonna do.”
Mr. Brat shrugged off the tweet, saying, “I don’t take it as a threat.”
“We are with him, but someone has gotten into his ear,” he told CNN.
Republicans had planned to send Mr. Trump an Obamacare repeal bill by the Easter recess.
Instead, they are holding informal talks on a way forward without setting a date to get it done, even as Mr. Ryan says insurers and consumers need to be rescued from an unstable market.
“This is too big of an issue to not get right,” Mr. Ryan said. “So I’m not going to put some kind of artificial deadline on saving the American health care system from an oncoming collapse.”
Bridging rifts within the GOP will be difficult, however.
Rep. Chris Collins, New York Republican and a staunch Trump ally, said it is “just a fact” that the health bill sank because of Freedom Caucus opposition.
“The president’s airing his frustration. I am happy that he is directing his anger where it should be directed,” he said.
Mr. Collins, a member of the Tuesday Group, said the coalition “will never” meet with the Freedom Caucus, saying the conservatives were looking to spread the blame for last week’s debacle, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for ad hoc groups to negotiate anyway.
“It’s not regular order,” he said. “It’s not our role.”
Rep. Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, said it is simply time for all sides to get serious about passing legislation that will never be perfect.
“I don’t blame the president for being frustrated,” Mr. Cole said. “He thinks this is a good bill; he’s told people that. He’s worked in good faith with everybody, and he’s made concessions left and right to people that I think have made the bill better.”
But Rep. Walter B. Jones, the North Carolina Republican who opposed the plan, said Mr. Trump might want to clean his own house before he criticizes members.
“I think he’s got his own problems, and he needs to deal with his own problems,” he said. “We are here not to represent the White House — we’re here to represent 700,000 people.”
⦁ Seth McLaughlin contributed to this report.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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