President Trump was understandably thrilled by the House’s passage of its tax-cut bill Thursday. On Twitter he called the vote a “a big step toward fulfilling our promise to deliver historic TAX CUTS for the American people by the end of the year.” Trump did not celebrate in the Rose Garden with House Republicans though, as he did following their passage of an Obamacare repeal bill in May. That victory lap on health care looked odd several weeks later, when the Senate failed to pass its version—and if the administration has learned anything from the Obamacare debacle, it’s to not declare a win too soon.
Once again, the Senate poses a problem for the White House’s legislative agenda. The votes aren’t there for the tax bill. At least not yet—because the GOP continues to deal with a narrow margin. Besides Ron Johnson, who has said he’s willing to be converted back to a “yes” if the pass-through entity tax rate is lowered, a number of senators are iffy.
John McCain has remained vaguely frustrated with the lack of “regular order” for the bill. And Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are opposed to the inclusion of a repeal of the individual mandate—an idea hatched by their colleague Tom Cotton, encouraged by Trump, and likely to be adopted by the Senate tax writers. But dropping that repeal could lose Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who view it as a way to shore up revenues.
“The mandate repeal is a promise we all made and we should keep. It also allows an additional $300 billion+ in tax cuts,” Paul tweeted this week.
And it’s this concern—how are the tax cuts going to be paid for?—that has deficit hawks such as Jeff Flake, Jim Lankford, and Bob Corker wavering. “I’ve been concerned for a long time on our debt and deficit — that’s what animates me,” Flake told Time magazine on Tuesday. “There are a couple other people who are concerned as well. We can do tax reform in ways that will grow the economy but we can’t just ignore the debt and deficit.”
Is there a way forward that satisfies enough of these different demands and interests to get something passed? Perhaps, though it’s not clear how Trump plans to do so. On Wednesday night the Trump had a call with Ron Johnson. When asked on Thursday if the president had offered the Wisconsin Republican anything in exchange for his support, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said no.
“But he did encourage him to get on board and support the tax reform package,” Sanders added.
Investigation Watch—This is some, um, oversight by Jared Kushner’s team. From Politico:
Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, pushed back, claiming that the White House aide and his legal team had provided the “relevant documents” to the committee.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated Thursday that the White House would not ask Roy Moore to drop out of the Alabama special election for Senate. Moore has been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault and other inappropriate sexual conduct, including with teenage girls.
“The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously, and he thinks that the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their next senator will be,” Sanders said.
Sanders repeated President Trump’s earlier statement that “if the allegations are true, then Roy Moore should step aside.” But she waffled when asked how the president would like to see those charges proven true or false.
“Look, I’m not going to get into and litigate back and forth,” she said. “I don’t think the president has laid out what the mechanisms are. That should be determined possibly by a court of law.”
Sanders equivocated further on a series of follow-up questions about Moore: Is the president rescinding his endorsement of Moore? Does he disagree with his daughter Ivanka, who has said she has no reason to disbelieve Moore’s accusers? Does he disagree with Republican senators who now strongly oppose Moore’s election?
“Look, the president supported the decision by the RNC to withdraw resources from this race, but feels it’s up to the people of Alabama to make a decision,” Sanders said. “So I don’t have anything further to add on that.”
The Bottom Line—The allegations against Moore place Trump in a political bind for several reasons. The credibility of the accusations and the damage to the Republican brand going into next year’s midterm if Moore stays in and wins. But the persistence of Moore, who denies the allegations and claims they are a plot by the mainstream media and the Republican establishment, looks an awful lot like Trump’s own “never give in” approach—something the GOP base loves about Trump. Weighing in could bolster Moore’s own argument he’s an outsider under siege. There’s also the fear that Moore could lose to Democrat Doug Jones, denying Trump and the GOP a much-needed vote in the Senate.
Of course, there’s one additional reason why Trump might be skittish to weigh in too strongly about sexual assault allegations, as Fox News’s James Rosen brought up in Thursday’s briefing.
“As we all know, the president faced a number of similar allegations, or somewhat similar allegations, during the course of the campaign, and he vigorously denied them,” Rosen asked Sanders. “I wonder what you would assert to be the difference between the two situations such that, on the face of things, we should find one set of allegations very troubling and, on the other, we shouldn’t pay attention to them at all or we should totally disbelieve them.”
“I think the president has certainly a lot more insight into what he personally did or didn’t do, and he spoke out about that directly during the campaign,” Sanders said. “And I don’t have anything further to add beyond that.”
As Republicans remain frustrated with Democrats for slow-rolling President Trump’s judicial nominees in the Senate, Chuck Grassley is taking a controversial step to streamline the process. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday that he would move ahead to confirm an appellate nominee although his home-state senator, Al Franken, has not returned a “blue slip” giving the go-ahead for his nomination.
“The Democrats seriously regret that they abolished the filibuster, as I warned them they would,” Grassley said. “But they can’t expect to use the blue slip courtesy in its place. That’s not what the blue slip is meant for.”
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Watch—From CNN: “Trump likely to tap budget director Mulvaney as interim CFPB chief”
Song of the Day— “Trouble” by Cage the Elephant
