Republican lawmakers are growing antsy that a stream of non-stop distractions from President Trump’s White House will stop them from implementing their agenda, after a week that saw a key resignation, a Cabinet nominee withdraw, and an unprecedented press conference from Trump.
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Republicans have yet to make a major move on issues like tax reform and repealing Obamacare, a top priority of House Speaker Paul Ryan. And some are starting to blame the White House for incidents like National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s sudden firing.
When that happened, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters that the string of distractions coming from the White House “sucks the oxygen right out of the room.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top ally of McCain’s, said he agreed.
“It does. It’s a cloud over the White House,” Graham told the Washington Examiner, referring to the New York Times report from Wednesday night. “Allegations of campaign involvement that may not be true — I’m not going to base my opinion around a newspaper report, but they’re worth looking at.”
“We’re not going to be able to enact an agenda until we get to the bottom of Russia’s involvement in our election. So I would urge the president to welcome an investigation just to clear the air,” Graham said.
After lawmakers return from their week away from Capitol Hill, which will likely be filled with contentious town hall meetings, they will face an important six-week stretch that will be critical for the GOP to enact its agenda. While Obamacare and tax reform remain the top issues the GOP hopes to tackle in 2017, they haven’t even been able to get around to other hot-button issues like border security and immigration.
Additionally, Senate Republicans remain unable to move forward with meaningful legislation as Democrats continue to drag their feet on Trump’s Cabinet nominees. In the month following Trump’s inauguration and ahead of Congress going on a week-long recess, only nine of Trump’s 15 cabinet members have been confirmed compared to 11 for former President Barack Obama in 2009. Former President George W. Bush had his entire cabinet filled at this point in his presidency.
“There’s plenty here to deal with without paying attention to what’s going over there. We’ve got a lot in the pipeline. It’s not that it brings things to a standstill over here … We’d like to see everything going smooth over there, and it hasn’t,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.
Graham argued that Senate Democrats have taken a “really harsh view” of the nomination process thus far, arguing that Trump deserves deference for his selections, just as Graham gave Obama in 2009.
“Trump’s being punished unlike any other president,” Graham said. “I’m just completely disappointed to their approach to this.”
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner that the superfluous stories stemming from the White House haven’t doomed the GOP agenda, but indicated that they are making it harder for the GOP to pitch their ideas to the public.
“I don’t think it’s detrimental at this point,” he said. “But it is a distraction.”
