House Democrats do not believe President Trump’s social media entreaty to work with them are sincere and have received no outreach from the White House, suggesting Trump’s tweet may have been a negotiating ploy to get the conservative Republican House Freedom Caucus to work with him.
“I’m unaware of any overture” to Democrats “or any indication of any kind” that he wants to work with Democrats, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told the Washington Examiner. “Here it is April, I’ve not heard from this White House or any agency of this administration.”
Since Republican leaders’ plan to unravel the Affordable Care Act stalled amid staunch opposition from a majority of the House Freedom Caucus, Trump has warned the group, via Twitter, that he’ll turn to Democrats to achieve his agenda instead.
“Ocare is dead. Good things will happen, however, either with Republicans or Dems,” he tweeted Sunday. The pressure may be paying off. Trump and the House Freedom Caucus are now deep in negotiations on a new deal to repeal Obamacare.
Before the conservative group sunk the original replacement bill, Trump met with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., to discuss drug prices, among other topics.
Although he’s “glad” the meeting occurred, “that’s not reaching out to Democrats, plural,” said Connolly, who is the whip for the New Democrat Coalition, a group of moderate House Democrats.
“You know you’ve got to do a lot more than that,” Connolly said. “It’s April. I haven’t heard [from Trump]. My feelings aren’t hurt, but you can’t claim to want to work in a bipartisan fashion … it gives the lie away.”
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who leads the caucus of roughly 60 Democrats, said the group is willing to work with the Trump administration if it is met halfway.
“It’s really just a question of whether they’re going to have a legislative strategy that’s designed to bring us onboard early in meaningful numbers,” Himes told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a lot of talk about picking people off and this and that, and that’s an antagonistic way of operating. So as long as they realize that we’ve got our values and we’ve got our goals we’re happy to enter into negotiations if those are the terms—that we’re going to have a real, bona fide negotiation.”
Other moderate Democrats were more blunt about the prospects of working with Trump.
“He’s not serious at all,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. “I don’t think he actually has any kind of footing at all when it comes to an ideological outcome, especially when it comes to the ACA, which makes it difficult for us to work with him.
“He hasn’t really been treating what I would call the ‘presidential norms’ as norms,” Gallego continued. ‘He attacks the press; he attacks members of Congress. He lies, which creates a very big schism in terms of us being able trust him and work with him in any manner that you would think would be beneficial to the public.”
Others were more generous but no less optimistic.
“There’s nothing to indicate that — there’s been no outreach, and the disappointing thing is there are probably two or three things that we could fix that would fulfill the promises that he made during the campaign on expanding coverage, bringing down premiums — but they don’t seem interested in doing that,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who earlier this year challenged Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to lead House Democrats, in part because he thought she didn’t speak well enough to more conservative Democrats.
“If he’s serious and it’s more than a tweet, we’re open to it,” said Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., who agreed with Ryan that Democrats needed to do a better job of connecting with Midwestern and rural Democrats. “We have ideas [but] so far it’s a message here and a tweet there.
“Frankly, it’s hard to figure out when he’s being sincere and when he’s just ranting,” Kildee told the Washington Examiner.
