PHILADELPHIA — Some congressional Republicans are growing worried that President Trump’s trademark unpredictability, and habit of changing his mind in public and over Twitter, could complicate their ambitious legislative agenda.
House and Senate Republicans emerged from a three-day policy retreat in Philadelphia more unified on key priorities like tax reform and replacing the Obamacare health insurance law. But they still lack personal assurances from Trump that he’s on board.
That isn’t necessarily a problem — yet. Congressional Republicans aren’t fully unified among themselves on which approach to take.
But some fear they could get considerably down the road writing legislation, even scheduling votes, and that the president might reject crucial elements of their plans, and may even scuttle their plans with a single tweet.
“The tweets are what the tweets are; sometimes you don’t know precisely what they mean or why they’ve been issued,” said Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa. “I don’t think Republicans in the House, or in the Senate, are going to want to spend their time doing something that may not be met with approval or signing authority by the president.”
Broadly, Republicans are happy with the administration so far and excited about what they can achieve together. White House aides participated in the closed-door policy sessions that Republicans held in Philadelphia to hash out strategy on health care, taxes, and other issues.
But in interviews, rank-and-file Republicans said they are doing their best to treat Trump’s at times confusing tweets and comments as white noise.
“Do you have anybody in your life who thinks out loud? In your life, they are contemplating things in your presence and you came to learn not to respond to everything that that person is opining about — that they are literally processing,” said Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill. “We’re learning how to interact as a majority, co-equal branch of government, and with a political figure in Donald Trump who managed to completely flip the game board of American politics.”
Trump’s public musings periodically lead to uncertainty on Capitol Hill. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal a few days before he took office, Trump criticized the “border adjustability” component of the House GOP tax reform plan, saying the 20 percent tax on imports wasn’t sufficient to solve America’s trade imbalance with other countries.
The Republicans’ tax overhaul doesn’t work without border adjustability, and House GOP leaders scrambled to get the president back on board. In a subsequent interview, Trump said that he remained open to supporting the border tax.
In an interview with the Washington Post, also a few days before inauguration, Trump suggested that he wanted his Affordable Care Act replacement to provide universal coverage, rather than the traditional GOP goal of universal access. Those comments came just after Trump warned Republicans via Twitter not to mishandle health care reform.
It’s hardly uncommon for a president to disagree with his party’s legislative agenda. But those complaints are usually communicated privately, allowing conflicts to be resolved without members of Congress feeling blindsided and confused.
Trump’s style of carping in public has Republicans questioning where they stand, even as they receive assurances from senior White House officials that the president is on board with their agenda.
“Because of that very reason, I want the president to lead us, and say, here’s what we want,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. “We don’t want to put the cart before the horse and have him tweet against us.”
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., one of Trump’s earliest backers in the 2016 campaign, conceded that the president’s approach might generate confusion and apprehension among his colleagues, though not himself.
He attributed Trump’s unconventional style to his business career and professional life spent as the leader of his own company. Collins, who also entered politics after a successful business career, said he operates similarly.
“I do some of the same things as a CEO myself. You put things out there to get reaction,” Collins said. “I play devil’s advocate all the time. I’ll put something out and I want to encourage vigorous debate. And, President Trump loves vigorous debate.”
