Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, said Sunday that her job isn’t to “fight” President Trump and that there’s a chance for bipartisanship on a tax overhaul if it’s packaged in the right way.
“We may not always agree on style, and sometimes we don’t agree on substance, but my job’s not to fight him. My job’s to fight for Missourians,” Mrs. McCaskill said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“And so I get up every day — my feet hit the ground trying to figure out how I can get stuff done for them — not how I can criticize the” president, she said.
“I’m one of the few senators left that’s not afraid to call myself a moderate, and I think that’s what we need right now,” she said. “All this noise is not accomplishing anything for people.”
Mrs. McCaskill is one of about a dozen Senate Democrats up for re-election in states Mr. Trump won in 2016.
She said there’s a chance for bipartisanship on a tax overhaul, which is the GOP’s next big-ticket agenda item.
“It’s hard for me to take seriously that they want Democrats to participate when they won’t show us the bill,” she said.
“What they’ve laid out is not a tax cut for middle class families,” she said, adding that there is a chance for bipartisan support if it does end up delivering for the middle class and small businesses.
She also said she supports lowering the corporate tax rate and could live with a rate in the “low 20s.” The Republican framework calls for the rate to be lowered from 35 percent to 20 percent.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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