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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 102 ~ 40 of 63
in failure, leaving tax overhaul legislation as their only hope for a major win. But despite a self-imposed year-end deadline, they’ve made only modest progress on that issue.
Some Republicans on Capitol Hill have grown resentful — and they’re looking ahead to 2018 midterm elections with apprehension.
But most shy from offering public criticism, arguing that the president is simply looking to Congress to do its job and pass legislation. If the work is piling up, they say, it’s because former President Barack Obama took executive steps that were actually in Congress’ domain, and now Trump needs congressional help to unwind them.
They point to immigration, where Obama acted unilaterally to extend protections to immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children, and the Iran nuclear deal, where Trump’s decision not to certify Iran’s compliance kicks the future of U.S. participation to Congress.
“Look, our job is our job and it’s our responsibility, it’s our job to get this done,” said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. “I’m not going to try to lay the blame at somebody else.”
Trump doesn’t have any such hesitation to assign blame elsewhere.
“I have great relationships with actually many senators, but in particular with most Republican senators. But we’re not getting the job done,” he said this week. “And I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest. They are not getting the job done.”
Trump’s unpredictability makes it hard for lawmakers to keep up with his latest positions.
“I hadn’t heard that. I thought yesterday he was liking it,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., remarked in sur- prise on Wednesday when asked about Trump’s opposition to the insurer payments deal Alexander crafted with Murray. Indeed, Trump had spoken favorably about the deal around midday Tuesday, only to reverse course by the time evening rolled around.
On immigration, Trump at different times in recent weeks has offered to work with Democrats to protect young immigrants for deportation, denied such a deal is in the of ng and suggested he could step in and craft a x of his own.
Trump’s allies argue he is just pushing lawmakers to enact the agenda they were elected on. A newcomer to legislative politics, Trump also brings a business and showman’s perspective to negotiations, relishing drama and surprise.
Critics say Trump is comfortable making Congress the fall guy.
“He sees Congress’s public approval ratings lower than his. So he feels he has an advantage over Con- gress,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “Whenever there’s a policy issue that’s thorny or undoable, he boots it to Congress to gure it out.
Brinkley added: “It’s the opposite of a buck-stops-here approach with Harry Truman.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who’s announced plans to retire and recently has been critical of Trump, says the president takes a different approach than past leaders.
“The more standard route is for the administration to lay out, for instance on health care, ... a series of bullet points at the minimum, or a full bill. That’s typically the way things would work. So, yeah, it’s a very different way of governing and I think it’s one of the reasons you’ve seen the results to be what they are.”
Democrats are more pointed. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Trump is making everyone’s job harder.
“This seems to be his M.O.,” Schumer said on the Senate oor. “He throws red meat to his right-wing base, whether it’s on health care, immigration, Iran, disaster aid, and then he says to Congress, ‘You x it up.’ That’s not the way to lead. That’s following.”
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Associated Press Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report.