Barely a year ago House Republicans begged Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan to lead them after their most conservative wing compelled Ohio’s John Boehner to throw up his hands and walk away from the speakership.
Now it looks as if the man from Janesville needs his one-time nemesis — President-elect Trump — to step in and stop his unruly conference from squandering voters’ goodwill.
Over objections from Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., House Republicans privately voted Monday night to bring an independent ethics watchdog in-house — an office created in the wake of a torrent of ethical and corruption scandals that rocked Capitol Hill from 2006-2008.
By Tuesday morning they had a public relations disaster on their hands and a leadership that looked incapable of preventing the rank-and-file from making House Republicans look like petulant children lashing out at the hall monitor. Worse, they seemed completely out of sync with Trump’s winning “drain the swamp” mantra.
“Well I didn’t think it was the right time to do it,” McCarthy opined on MSNBC Tuesday morning, sounding like an out-voted minority member instead of the House’s No. 2 Republican.
Ryan hauled them into an emergency meeting hours later but before he could finish cracking the whip, Trump swooped in via Twitter, criticizing their priorities. Problem solved. Lawmakers emerged to vote on a package that will govern House operations in the 115th Congress that did not make changes to the Office of Congressional Ethics.
It was almost as if Ryan and McCarthy were “mom” who had to threaten to bring in “dad”— as in, “Don’t make me call your father.” And as if Trump’s “belt” to beat the naughty kids into submission is Twitter: “Don’t make me tweet!”
Trump has a “direct line to the people,” that the political establishment must respect, one of his Hill lieutenants, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told CNN Wednesday.
His 18.6 million Twitter followers definitely make lawmakers pay attention.
Trump’s scornful tweets at House Republicans sent “some shockwaves through Congress,” Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., told Politico Wednesday. “It’s going to send shivers down the spines of some members,” he said, acknowledging that the ethics admonishments are unlikely to be the last.
“Right now, everybody’s lining up to follow Trump,” ConservativeHQ.com Chairman Richard Viguerie explained about lawmakers’ swift reaction to Trump’s order. “He’s the wagon master. He’s the new sheriff in town and everybody wants to be on his good side.”
Before Trump’s upset victory, Ryan’s nascent speakership looked vulnerable.
House Freedom Caucus members — the same force that toppled Boehner — were grumbling about Ryan. Members made public calls to delay closed-door, internal leadership elections scheduled for the week members returned to Washington. Rumors swirled he’d face a challenger. Ryan’s critical, and sometimes dismissive, remarks about Trump left Trump backers and some Freedom Caucus members smarting. And Ryan’s outright break from the real estate mogul shortly before Election Day left them fuming.
But then Trump won, he and Ryan made nice, and everyone worked to get on the same page and look unified.
“He’s hanging on at the good graces of Donald Trump,” Viguerie said about Ryan’s leadership role.
The ethics debacle — and the apparent need of Trump’s intervention — “shows that Paul Ryan doesn’t have deep support,” in the conference, he said. “His support is very, very thin. I don’t think he has cemented his role as speaker.”
Members who saw some merit in the complaints about the ethics watchdog but understood Ryan’s position credit Trump with saving the day.
“I continue to have serious issues with the Office of Congressional Ethics related to the politicization of investigations and a lack of due process,” Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., Trump’s first House backer, stated on Tuesday. “However, I share the same concerns of President-elect Trump that the focus of Congress today should be on the major issues facing our nation.”
When Trump assumes office Jan. 20 his already sizeable Twitter megaphone will more than double as the Obama administration is turning over its official accounts to the incoming Trump administration.
The main White House account has 13.1 million followers. Obama’s “POTUS” account — opened less than two years ago — has 13 million followers. The White House blog account has 163,000 followers.
In speaking about the issue of national security on CNN Wednesday, Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., underscored Trump’s ability to influence voters — and, by extension, lawmakers — via social media.
“This president-elect has done a tremendous job in raising awareness to the American people of the vulnerability of national security,” Ross said. “And he’s done so of course by Twitter.”
As congressional Republicans struggle with replacing the Affordable Care Act, Trump is again taking to Twitter to sway them in his direction.
“Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. “Don’t let the Schumer clowns out of this web … it will fall of its own weight — be careful!”
They are listening. The GOP talking point on Capitol Hill Wednesday and Thursday is that regardless of how they change health insurance, any negative effects policyholders feel are Obama’s fault.
“Part of the thing we have to do is message the ‘failure’ of Obamacare,” Collins obligingly told Politico Wednesday. “We can talk about replacing, but it starts with America knowing the Democrats have failed.”
Underscoring what’s at stake for Ryan, Viguerie said: “Ryan is one of the people who could be a hero to conservatives right now — if he passes Trump’s agenda.”
