As the charred wreckage of the American Health Care Act still smoldered Thursday morning, one of the president’s senior staffers slipped out of the White House. After just two months, Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh was leaving the administration for good.
Though abrupt, the departure seems strategic. This isn’t Walsh deserting Trump’s army. She’s changing her deployment in order to take on a new fight: battling conservatives — specifically, the House Freedom Caucus.
At least, that looks like the plan. “It was abundantly clear we didn’t have air cover,” Chief of Staff Reince Priebus explained after the faction brought down the healthcare bill. “No one can fix this problem better than Katie Walsh.”
Walsh will have plenty of allies when she sets up operations over at the pro-Trump PAC, America First Policies. She’ll be side by side with Mike Shields, her fiancé and former president of the Ryan-backed, congressional leadership fund. After her White House exodus, he tweeted that Walsh would offer support that’s “badly needed.”
When Shields was at the helm, the congressional leadership fund tried hammering the Freedom Caucus over the healthcare bill. For a week, they ran attack ads in the backyards of 30 members. After the speaker was forced to scuttle his own bill before it came to the House floor, it appears that the PAC barely made a dent.
Even Trump expressed surprise that conservatives hadn’t gotten on board with the plan. And after thrashing around on Twitter for a week, it’s clear a new strategy is needed if the White House is to crack the Freedom Caucus.
Ideologically devoted and politically entrenched, they appeared unmoved by Trump’s smashmouth attacks. The art of the deal hasn’t translated to political success. To the chagrin of the White House, conservatives just aren’t afraid of the populist president.
As we first pointed out, more than two dozen of the roughly three dozen Freedom Caucus members out-performed the president in their congressional districts during the general election. A more fleshed out FiveThirtyEight analysis, later shows that just six of those members face any real risk if Trump backs a primary challenger. Enter Walsh.
The former White House staffer could add teeth to Trump’s tweets. Rather than just a blanket bombing campaign like the one her fiance’s group launched, Walsh could deploy more targeted operation. Guided by Trump’s tweets and institutional knowledge, the operative might be the one dropping bunker busters on recalcitrant conservatives.
This article has been updated to reflect that Mike Shields no longer serves as president of the Congressional Leadership Fund. He left that post in January.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
