Trump’s Republican Targets and Why They Matter

Blame for many of the Republican majority’s shortcomings this year is squarely on Capitol Hill power-brokers. The GOP was calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare long before Donald Trump announced for the White House. The party brainpower failed to use the intervening years to develop, embrace, and successfully sell a plan. (The president’s disengagement on the details of reform only made things worse.) This one issue overrode what could have been at the top of the GOP agenda otherwise: tax policy, infrastructure, even a salient debate on border security that included more words than just “the wall.” These matters will remain in the mine for a while longer. Government funding is set to expire in a matter of weeks—again. The debt ceiling needs to be raised last-minute—again.

And again, the White House will have to work with Hill Republicans before this monster buffet of pending crises and major legislative goals eats them. The tasks become only tougher as Trump sours more relationships—particularly in the Senate, where the number of his GOP rivals as a percentage of the party caucus is much larger than it is in the House. The president called out a frequent ally, foreign relations chairman Sen. Bob Corker, just last week. Here are a half-dozen others to whom he’s done the same, why they matter, and a new name to monitor once Congress gavels in after Labor Day.

Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski

What’d she do? She voted against advancing several Republican-backed Obamacare repeal measures in late-July, including the last-gasp “skinny” repeal sunk by her, Sen. Susan Collins, and Sen. John McCain.

How’d Trump respond? Interior secretary Ryan Zinke phoned Murkowski and her state delegation colleague, Sen. Dan Sullivan, to tell them her position “had put Alaska’s future with the administration in jeopardy,” the Alaska Dispatch News reported. Murkowski told E&E News the call was “not … very pleasant.” Trump also tweeted that Murkowski “let the country down.”

What’s the future significance? Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which could help facilitate the administration’s energy policy objectives. She also won re-election in 2016; fears of campaign retribution are far off. As a frequent swing vote in a majority with just 52 GOP senators, she is not a lawmaker the president can lose often in an era of party-line legislating.

Arizona senator John McCain

What’d he do? He called a late-January U.S. raid against al-Qaeda in Yemen a “failure.” Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens died in the operation. Around the same time, McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham also released a statement criticizing the president’s ban on refugees from several Muslim-majority countries.

How’d Trump respond? In response to McCain’s comment about the Yemen raid, he said the Arizona Republican “has been losing so long he doesn’t know how to win anymore.” He added talking about the success or failure of such operations “only emboldens the enemy.” In response to McCain and Graham’s statement on the refugee ban, Trump said the two senators were “sadly weak on immigration” and “should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III.”

What’s the future significance? Notwithstanding how McCain’s health challenges will affect his official work, he is the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and a born-again maverick, depending on your opinion of the health-reform debate. There are times he’s criticized Trump and not received a public rebuke, but his feuds with the president have been high-profile and longstanding, all the way to 2015. McCain still has significant influence in the upper chamber: as a party elder, a possible negotiator on-call, and a messenger who can appear in front of a TV camera whenever he wants. Trump would do well to tread carefully with him; McCain is a border-state senator who sounds willing to deal on a wall.

Arizona senator Jeff Flake

What’d he do? Besides write this book? Just generally exist.

How’d Trump respond? He moved @realDonaldTrump to DEFCON 1, plugged Flake’s oddball primary challenger Kelli Ward, and huddled with Flake’s other potential rivals during a recent Phoenix rally. Trump called Flake “toxic.” All that was missing were the lyrics “I’m addicted to you.”

What’s the future significance? There are at least a few senators in the Republican party’s mainstream (not its left) who have claimed ground outside Trump’s orbit. But if those lawmakers are regular old satellites, then Flake is all the way out on the moon. Still, the Arizona Republican is too mild-mannered to match Trump with invective. Funny enough, during his House days Flake had the reputation of being the sort of principled fiscal conservative the grassroots loved. It’s unlikely that his voting pattern will deviate from his ideology if there is overlap with Trump’s legislative goals. But his Senate race next year could be the most charged contest of 2018. The outcome and how Flake behaves in the lead-up to it will be a prime-time test case to anti-Trump conservatives looking for voices in elective office.

Kentucky senator and majority leader Mitch McConnell

What’d he do? He failed on health reform, resisted Trump’s entreaties to eliminate a 60-vote threshold on most legislation, and criticized the president for having “excessive expectations” coming into office.

How’d Trump respond? Of late, by turning the criticism for a stalled GOP agenda right back at McConnell. In a credible and harsh return volley, Trump tweeted:

The president also has prodded the Kentucky Republican repeatedly during the congressional recess with this gist: “get back to work.”

What’s the future significance? There’s a fundamental disagreement in governing approach between McConnell, the Senate institutionalist and quiet operator, and Trump, the man elected to reupholster D.C. institutions largely with a welder’s mask and a rhetorical blowtorch. The ramifications of this, though, are mostly political—it amounts to blame-shifting in an environment where significant policy achievements are elusive. Congress’s dysfunction was well-entrenched before this year, especially on fiscal issues. This problem has new company: intraparty disagreement blocking Republicans from coalescing around a major platform goal like health reform, and the sheer nuttiness of the administration, including the various Russia probes, which eat into company time. McConnell and Trump have no choice but to be partners in private, even if that makes them frenemies in public.

Nebraska senator Ben Sasse

What’d he do? He has overlaid moral, philosophical, and ultimately thorough criticism of Trump on top of Trump’s very character, not just his every move. His “open letter to Trump supporters” from February 2016 stands as the best example of this. Recently, he’s taken to subtweeting the president, which is sort of like aiming the megaphone 15 degrees away from the other guy’s ear.

How’d Trump respond? Unflatteringly:

OK That one was from campaign season, not this year. But it sums up his thoughts better than Trump possibly could have since.

What’s the future significance? Though Flake wrote a book about standing apart from Trump on the conservative right, Sasse has written the book on opposing him continually. Their mutual dislike transcends legislating. Besides, as Sasse said in a June interview with Tyler Cowen, “[O]ne of the things that I find strange from a whole bunch of folks on the Left who are really critical of me is, they say, ‘You’re worried about declining norms and you’re worried about X, Y, and Z, and you’ve been critical of the president about this, that, or the other thing, or you’re concerned about declining public trust, but look at your voting record. You end up voting with Trump 95 percent of the time,’ or whatever they say. What’s weird about that critique is, it just assumes that we’re voting on important things. And that’s not true.” (Read more about that here.) Any conservative elected to high office who sets himself apart from Trump in demeanor and worldview is going to garner 2020 buzz. Those stakes are higher than the next Senate vote.

Nevada senator Dean Heller

What’d he do? He had the temerity to oppose Medicaid changes in a health reform draft that about 18 Americans favored. (Not percent, but actual people.) His state’s governor, Brian Sandoval, was not one of those 18. Heller eventually voted in favor of a “skinny” Obamacare repeal bill that excluded Medicaid language, though it failed.

How’d Trump respond? During one of his lighter public moments in June, he jokingly challenged Heller, who was seated directly to his right, for his opposition to the Medicaid-included health reform language. “Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?”

What’s the future significance? Heller would argue that opposing the GOP leadership’s preferred Medicaid changes helped give him a shot at holding his vulnerable seat next year. “There’s only one reason why Medicaid was kept in that final [“skinny”] version, and that’s because of me,” he said at a local meeting last week, per the Nevada Independent. “It was because of me and my efforts that we were able to protect low-income families in this state with the Medicaid expansion.” Still, the pro-Trump super-PAC America First Policies briefly started an ad campaign against Heller before pulling it in less than a day. Those few chain-links of events underscored how the Republican will have to bust through a double-envelopment of political attacks next year to secure re-election, as Susan Milligan writes for U.S. News. Heller is going to get hit from the left no matter what. As the most vulnerable GOP Senate incumbent, he can’t afford to be squeezed by Trump.

Name to watch: Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander

The chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will soon hold hearings to do with Obamacare what President Trump doesn’t want to see: Fix it, not let it fail. “There are a number of issues with the American health care system, but if your house is on fire, you want to put out the fire, and the fire in this case is the individual health insurance market. Both Republicans and Democrats agree on this,” Alexander stated in an announcement. Insurers have until Sept. 27 to sign contracts with the federal government to offer plans on the exchange. The HELP committee’s first hearing is scheduled for next Wednesday.

Alexander occasionally has cautioned or denounced Trump and the administration. He warned the White House in May after a report revealed the president told classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador. Amid Trump’s threats to force a government shutdown over funding for a proposed southern wall, Alexander said last week, “I wasn’t elected to shut down the government.” Elected to receive a Twitter barb from the Oval Office, however? The odds are greater than zero.