President Trump’s threats against members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus this week fit a pattern of pointed attacks that helped create his outsider appeal to voters — but may hamper his ability to work within an insider system.
After at least a half-dozen Freedom Caucus Republicans held out against pressure from the White House to support a healthcare reform bill that Trump had backed, the president took to Twitter to warn the conservative bloc to “get on the team” admonish them for moving to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”
Trump’s blunt style and willingness to target individuals on sensitive issues, such as his 2015 tirade against Republican Sen. John McCain’s decorated war record, has delivered the president a string of controversies since he stepped into the presidential race while touting a promise to rid America of Mexican rapists.
The tactics served him well on the campaign trail. His sharp-tongued attacks on “low-energy” Jeb Bush and “little” Marco Rubio helped set him apart from a crowded GOP primary field before he turned his attention to “crooked” Hillary Clinton.
And many of those who ended up on the receiving end of Trump’s barbs ultimately fell in line behind him. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential hopeful who got closest to the nomination besides Trump, publicly refused to endorse the president from the stage at the GOP convention due to Trump’s prior attacks on his father and wife.
But Cruz eventually pledged his support for Trump before Election Day, attributing his reluctant endorsement to the importance of filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant Supreme Court seat with a conservative.
The free-wheeling rhetoric that characterized Trump’s campaign has drawn criticism from supporters and opponents alike since he took office.
After a Seattle court placed a temporary injunction on Trump’s first attempt to suspend immigration from the Middle East, Trump slammed what he saw as an overreach by a “so-called judge.”
Even Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s popular conservative Supreme Court nominee, took issue with the president attacking a member of the federal judiciary.
And Trump’s vitriol against the media — regarded as a quirk of his unorthodox campaign — has raised concerns about First Amendment protections now that the bombastic billionaire holds the power of the presidency.
His constant attacks on specific outlets whose coverage has angered him, such as the “failing” New York Times or the “failing pile of garbage” that is BuzzFeed, have prompted pushback from their media colleagues, who have closed ranks against journalists and publications that end up on Trump’s bad side.
Trump’s grudge against the Freedom Caucus could imperil his administration’s plans to pass Obamacare reform on what press secretary Sean Spicer described as a “dual track” with tax reform in the coming weeks.
Lawmakers in the conservative voting bloc have long prioritized ideology over political gains, a dynamic that clashes with Trump’s results-driven agenda.
Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told the Washington Examiner in an hour-long interview that he was “surprised” by Trump’s latest warning for conservative lawmakers.
“I was surprised by the tweet but the president is a leader, he’s a negotiator and obviously, he’s someone who believes that, at this point, that the Freedom Caucus is holding up his agenda,” Meadows said.
The North Carolina Republican suggested several of Trump’s top advisors had provided flawed guidance by telling him that the Freedom Caucus was responsible for the death of the American Health Care Act.
“He’s not being well-served in that,” Meadows said. “The narrative is not surprising in the White House, because I think some of his advisors are suggesting there was consensus, and we pulled the rug out from under the president’s agenda, and nothing could be further from the truth.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, had harsher words for Trump.
“Tweets, statements and blame don’t change facts,” Jordan told the Washington Examiner.
Just a few hours after the interview with Meadows and Jordan had ended, Trump went after the pair of lawmakers — as well as their colleague, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho — in a fresh set of tweets that seemed to lay the blame for delays in passing healthcare reform squarely at their feet.
“If [Meadows], [Jordan] and [Labrador] would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts and reform,” Trump tweeted Thursday evening.
Meadows acknowledged Thursday that Trump’s Twitter tirades could complicate current and future negotiations over healthcare.
“I think what makes it hard is that it is policy that will affect every American,” Meadows said. “What would make it easier, is if everybody was willing to negotiate in good faith, assuming that failure is not an option.”
“Sometimes when you’re negotiating, there are people who feel like they have a position of strength because of — perhaps a tweet, or perhaps because of a leadership position — and so in that way does it make it harder? I think it’s important for us to be intellectually honest and say, yes it does,” Meadows added.
The Freedom Caucus chairman did not return the blame Trump has heaped on his members, however. Instead, Meadows said Trump had surrounded himself with people who had grown accustomed to the political status quo.
“He’s got a number of advisers around him who are used to the way that Washington, D.C., does business,” Meadows said. “And they’re in the White House and so when you look at that, they are giving him advice based on what they’ve known has worked or not worked over the last two decades here in Washington, D.C. So do I blame the president? No.”
