McConnell and the GOP Senate Need Trump and They Better Start Producing for Him before 2018

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT McCONNELL NEEDS TRUMP MORE THAN TRUMP NEEDS McCONNELL. Mitch McConnell is too savvy and experienced a Washington politician not to know that you do not attack your own party's sitting President -- especially when your President is being hounded by the media and Progressive Democrats in an attempt to destroy him and his presidency. • • • McCONNELL CHIDED BY TRUMP. Fox News pointed out last Thursday that "President Donald Trump ripped into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a tense private phone call Wednesday morning." Fox quoted a source familiar with the call, who said Trump was reacting angrily to McConnell’s remarks at a Rotary Club speech Monday in his home state of Kentucky in which he suggested that the President, given his lack of political experience, suffers from “excessive expectations” about what both chambers of Congress can get done. According to Fox News, during the approximately 10-minute phone call, the source said, the President curtly told McConnell he did not appreciate the criticism and still expects Republican leaders to push for repealing Obamacare, even though that has largely been shelved for now. The source added that Trump also told McConnell he is unhappy with US Senator John McCain, who cast a decisive vote against repealing Obamacare without a replacement in place. McCain, who is battling brain cancer, also slammed the President’s aggressive rhetoric on North Korea this week. The source said the President suggested to McConnell that he does not understand why the Majority Leader is allowing McCain to keep his powerful chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee after bucking the party. The unpleasant phone call between Trump and McConnell -- the Senate leader whom the President needs to shepherd the rest of his legislative agenda -- came hours before the President's Wednesday afternoon tweet expressing more gentle public annoyance over McConnell’s remarks. In the tweet, President Trump said : “Senator Mitch McConnell said I had ‘excessive expectations,’ but I don’t think so. After 7 years of hearing Repeal & Replace, why not done?” • • • McCONNELL'S EXPLANATION FOR HIS COMMENTS. TheHilln Saturday reported that Senate Majority Leader McConnell "did not intend to pick a fight when he questioned President Trump’s expectations and was surprised by the explosion it produced, according to people close to the Senate GOP leader." McConnell’s allies characterized the affair as a misunderstanding, but President Trump was not amused. Trump told the media : "We should have had healthcare approved. [McConnell] should have known that he had a couple of votes that turned on him and that should have been very easy to handle, whether it's through the fact that he can take away a committee chairmanship or do whatever you have to do." • Sources close to McConnell say he is stunned by Trump's attacks, which increased last week, as an attack on a member of his own team. But, what was McConnell doing if not attacking the leader of his own team??? A senior administration official expressed “100 percent agreement” with the President that McConnell has not done enough to advance his legislative agenda ,citing McConnell’s failure to pass healthcare reform and the record-slow pace in confirming his nominees to key executive branch positions. Trump and his allies recognize he was elected to the White House because voters want accomplishments that will change the status quo. The Trump administration delegated the repeal and replacement of Obamacare to McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan -- and they are not getting the job done, said the source : “People think Mitch maybe has lost a step.” McConnell says he worked hard and exhausted every option to pass Obamacare repeal legislation, the source pointed out that Senators just left town for a four-week break from Washington. Trump allies say McConnell vowed to “burn the midnight oil” to get things accomplished in the majority, but that hasn’t happened. Trump’s broadsides at McConnell, who spent three months negotiating legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare and came one vote short of sending a bill to conference, left McConnell’s allies dumbfounded. A McConnell friend says : “Trump’s reaction was way disproportionate.” • McConnell had carefully avoided confrontations with Trump during the presidential campaign, but he stepped on a landmine last Monday when he said Trump “had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the Democratic process.” Scott Jennings, a former senior political advisor to the Majority Leader, said McConnell was merely offering a “dispassionate, emotionless” view of “the reality of Washington, which is things happen more slowly than we would like. I believe politics is a team sport and Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have largely been on the same team not only for the past few months, but dating back to Mitch McConnell’s most recent reelection campaign,” -- when Trump gave $50,000 to support McConnell’s reelection. Jennings said : “I don’t know if President Trump got bad advice from somebody or if somebody’s trying to portray it to him in a way that isn’t real. When you’re trying to vent your anger and frustration at somebody, you’ve got to remember who’s wearing what jersey. McConnell and Trump are wearing the same jersey.” • And, most GOP Senators are making clear their loyalties lie with the Senate leader. As of Friday afternoon, at least 20 GOP Senators had voiced support for McConnell’s leadership. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, also from Kentucky and a Tea Party favorite, said McConnell still has his full support and that if any Republicans deserve blame for the failure of Obamacare repeal, it’s the Republicans who voted against the bill. A person close to McConnell told the media that if Trump tried to drive a wedge between the leader and the rest of the Senate GOP conference, “it backfired." • • • TRUMP WAS ANGRY AT McCONNELL'S FAILURE TO DELIVER. The remark clearly angered Trump. He dismissed McConnell’s analysis of his “excessive expectations" with a curt “I don’t think so” via Twitter and took a more personal shot by voicing disbelief that the leader “couldn’t get it done” after having “screamed repeal and replace for seven years.” By Thursday, Trump was suggesting to reporters that McConnell maybe should step down as Senate majority leader, his career-long dream, if he fails to deliver on tax reform and infrastructure. • While McConnell’s allies say Trump has reason to be frustrated over the Senate’s failure to pass healthcare legislation, venting his anger on McConnell makes no sense -- if for no other reason than he needs him to pass other parts of his agenda. Some have called Trump's attack on McConnell "a strategic blunder because no one is more important than McConnell to Trump’s agenda.” Trump needs a savvy and friendly Majority Leader to get his agenda passed through the Senate, where the threshold for controversial bills is often 60 votes. Allies note that McConnell delivered Trump’s biggest win since the election by holding open the Supreme Court seat left open by the 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell also changed the Senate rules to confirm Neil Gorsuch, a conservative, to the seat. McConnell’s camp thinks Trump blew the episode out of proportion. • Brian Darling, a conservative GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said : "Maybe this will incentivize the leadership of the Senate to actually do something because they’ve put zero points on the board. The only thing the Senate leadership has done is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Other than that, they have done nothing. Trump is 100 percent right to point at them and say they’re not doing their job. They’re not even starting debate on infrastructure and tax reform.” • • • THE WASHINGTON SWAMP HASN'T CHANGED. Conservative activists say the GOP base is furious over the failure to pass legislation repealing and replacing Obamacare and that Trump is right to hold congressional leaders’ feet to the fire. Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation, said : “Trump gets it and I don’t think the Majority Leader does. People who elected Trump didn’t elect somebody up there just to maintain the status quo. They wanted something done. If the Republicans don’t have something to show -- the base is already not happy -- the base will be furious.” While McConnell’s allies counter that the failure of the Obamacare repeal bill happened because the votes simply weren’t there, they also argue that Trump made the job harder by alienating two of the three Senate Republicans who voted against the bill. Trump during the campaign questioned whether Senator John McCain was really a war hero and bashed Senator Lisa Murkowski when she voted against a procedural motion before the crucial final vote. • McConnell’s critics on the right used Trump’s hit on McConnell as political cover to pile on. Fox News host Sean Hannity called on Monday called McConnell “weak” and “spineless” and said he needs to retire. The Senate Conservatives Fund, which opposed McConnell during his 2014 reelection, shot out a message to supporters on Wednesday asking them to urge GOP Senators to take “immediate steps” to replace him as leader. • • • NEWT WEIGHS IN. Last Thursday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it "absurd" and "goofy" that President Trump is blaming Senate Republicans for the failure of healthcare reform, saying : "For every Republican who voted no, there were 16 Democratic Senators who voted no." Gingrich said conservatives should aim their fire on the "10 Democratic Senators" from states that Trump carried who voted no, not McConnell : "The fact is, with a very narrow margin, Mitch McConnell got 49 out of 52. I think the President can't disassociate himself from this. He's part of the leadership team; he's not an observer sitting up in the stands; he's on the field. It was a collective failure; both the Trump administration and Republicans in the Senate failed. But to get involved shooting at each other when there were 16 Democrats voting no for every single Republican who voted no, is goofy." • Gingrich said a bigger loss is ahead for Republicans if they don't learn a lesson from failing on healthcare : "What bothers me is, we have a lot of things we need to learn how to do if we're going to be an effective governing majority party, and I'm frankly equally afraid they're going to mishandle the tax cuts exactly the way they mishandled healthcare, and if that happens, we'll be at the end of the year with a disaster." The key for Newt is that the GOP should quit setting deadlines : "Setting these deadlines, when you don't have a clear plan, when you don't have an absolute majority [60 votes]...these kind of deadlines create these expectations and then it becomes a crisis and then somebody has to have failed....Replacing Obamacare...may take three or four or five years and it may take 10 or 12 different bills. I'm not sure anybody's smart enough to write a single bill to replace Obamacare in one giant step, and I'm not sure you'd get a majority in the House and Senate if you could." Earlier, in July, Gingrich said : "Maybe what you need, is six or seven different smaller bills. You can eat it one piece at a time. What they need to do is go back, and figure out what are the easiest pieces to dismantle....It is not practical to take one-fifth of the economy, life or death of every American, and try to pass it in one bill." Gingrich suggested that Republicans in the House and Senate "ought to take a deep breath and slow down....get in a huddle, and figure out what they are going to change....They have to rethink the way they approach these bills." • • • TRUMP'S COMPLAINT GOES BEYOND OBAMACARE. American Thinker recently published an article that said : "Great Expectations is more than a Charles Dickens novel from the 19th century. It is also one of the primary reasons 63 million Americans cast their votes for Donald Trump last November. Americans also had great expectations for Barack Obama in 2008 -- our first "post-racial" president, bringing an end to racial strife, not to mention lowering the sea levels. Hope and change. Great expectations. Fast-forward eight years. Obama didn't deliver on expectations, whether on health care or economic growth. He did not bring peace in the Middle East -- instead, further chaos and the rise of ISIS. There were racial unrest and riots reminiscent of the 1960s. Donald Trump came along and, with four simple words, "Make America Great Again," gave America real hope for real change. Great expectations. And the Obama coalition was sent packing. Congress too created great expectations. When Barack Obama was elected President, Democrats controlled the House and the Senate. Obamacare was passed and implemented, immediately making health care more expensive and less accessible to many Americans. Republicans, none of whom voted for the original Obamacare legislation, immediately promised that if given the reins of power, they would repeal it. In 2010, Republicans told America to vote them control of the House so they could repeal Obamacare, cut wasteful spending, and implement a conservative agenda....Republicans then told America the House couldn't do anything alone; they needed the Senate, too. Delivered in 2014. Obamacare repeal bills were passed, multiple times, and sent to the president's desk for the expected veto. Congress next told America Republicans needed the White House to avoid Obama's veto pen. This too was delivered, although not the President most in Congress would have preferred, but the clear choice of the voters. Great expectations met. Republican control of Congress and the White House. An electoral majority not seen in nearly a century. Time to deliver." • BUT, seven months into the Trump presidency, Congress has delivered little other than Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. What happened to the great expectations? Many look at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Last December, fresh from another banner election for Republicans on Trump's coattails, McConnell promised that Obamacare repeal was "the first item up in the new year," saying, "We have an obligation to the American people to change it and to do a better job." • America cheered. But, McConnell's Senate waited six months to get to Obamacare -- it was not the "first item up" on their legislative agenda. And, when they finally got to it, did they repeal it? Revise it? No. Not even a "skinny repeal." "Doing a better job?" I don't think so. And neither do Americans. • But, instead of taking his licking like a seasoned politician, Mitch McConnell decided to blame President Trump : "I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." That is pure CYA rubbish. Mitch McConnell is a word master. He can and has cut down Senate opponents with one sentence. And, he intended to do that to Trump by tellling him that the Senate, not Trump, is in charge. • Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid didn't blame their President -- they got it done, for better or for worse. As American Thinker wrote : "Trump can't repeal Obamacare. He can't replace it, either. He can certainly support congressional efforts, which he did, but that's it." • • • LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY. Leaders, well, they lead. And, that includes Senate Majority Leader McConnell. Republican leaders sitting on a once-in-a-lifetime electoral majority and a long awaited opportunity to deliver on years of campaign promises are failing the test. McConnell refuses so far to ditch the filibuster rule that would let him get every bill passed with 51 votes -- because he says the Democrats may use it when they control the Senate. Perhaps Mitch has conveniently forgotten that Harry Reid ditched the filibuster rule to get a truckload of Progresive federal judges appointed under Obama. Did Reid worry about the future use of his tactic by the GOP??? You bet he did not. GOP political promises created expectations that got Republicans elected to the House and Senate -- to give the GOP the majority that voters thought would lead to keeping their promises. Senator McConnell's worship of Senate procedural rules and his otherwise legislative ineptitude, or deliberate delaying, has nothing to do with President Trump's inexperience in the Washington Swamp -- or with McConnell's straw man excuse about "artificial deadlines unrelated to the reality of the legislature which may have not been understood." • • • THE GOP PROMISES. A majority of Americans elected McConnell -- and Speaker Paul Ryan -- to lead. If they cannot or will not lead on the agenda that got them elected -- let them say so. If they cannot or will not support their President – let them say so. Republican members of Congress have made promises to the American people -- Obamacare, tax reform, military budget support. President Trump is doing all he can -- BUT he needs Congress for repealing and replacing Obamacare and for reforming the unfair and tangled web that is American's current tax system. If McConnell and Ryan and the rest can't deliver on their parts of the GOP promises, the decent thing to do is step aside for those who can deliver. • • • TRUMP'S PROMISES. President Trump is being attacked by a hostile media, undermined by a Deep State full of Obama/Clinton holdovers and betrayed by some GOP #NeverTrumpers who never will accept him as President. But, he is determined to do what he promised. It was Trump's oattails that allowed Congress to seat a solidly conservative Supreme Court justice. Trump has reduced regulations and increased jobs – another 209,000 in July; caused a dramatic drop in the number of illegal immigrants, including criminal illegal aliens like MS-13 members and convicted felons; he is restoring the strength of the military; making sure veterans receive the medical care and services they need; stopping the transgender and sex reassignment policies that have damaged morale and distracted US armed forces from their core mission of waging aggressive war against ISIS; he warned North Korea and other adversaries that American might is back; he has reversed the Obama Education Department‘s edict on gender identity, and liberated public school students, teachers and parents from a federal violation of local autonomy; he has reoriented the Justice Department to defend the borders and crack down on sanctuary cities; he stopped the Environmental Protection Agency from harassing businesses and property owners; and appointed an Election Integrity Commission to protect the vote of every American citizen; he is enthusiastic to acknowledge the importance of God in American life. He even led the UN Security Council -- including Russia and China -- to unanimously sanction North Korea for its nuclear weapons program, and he united 55 Arab and Moslem nations against terrorism, condemning Assad, Hamas, and Iran. In the first 200 days of his presidency, President Trump signed 44 pieces of legislation and 42 executive orders reversing Obama‘s policies. • • • DEAR READERS, instead of reporting these accomplishments, the media is hypnotized by its fake news myth of Trump - Russia collusion, for which there is No Evidence. As a result, many people are unaware of the progress the Trump administration is making on so many fronts. Another way in which the GOP Congress could help their President is for congressional Republicans to tell their constituents about the President's successes, instead of calling out his "excessive expectations." Donald Trump is not be a Swamp Creature -- thank the Lord -- but his life experience is getting the job done. And that is a lot more than we can say for the political experience of his GOP foot soldiers in Congress. • Majority Leader Mitch McConnell must realize the urgent need of the American people to be free of the terrible policies of the Obama administration, so why will he not end the filibuster rule so that the Senate can pass important legislation on taxes and healthcare. If the McConnell is unable or unwilling to rise to the challenge, he should resign. Senate Democrats are using the Senate filibuster rule to obstruct the people‘s business. Senate Republicans can change the filibuster by a simple majority vote. Majority Leader McConnell has expressed worry that Democrats will take advantage the next time they are in control, but, if McConnell and the GOP Senate fail to repeal and replace Obamacare and reduce taxes, it would be such a profound betrayal of the people who voted for GOP candidates that McConnell‘s worry may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy in 2018. • The battle lines are drawn, and the future of the country is at stake. David Brock of Media Matters, a George Soros-funded leftist “think tank,” has issued a 49-page secret war manual for destroying the Trump Administration and regaining Democratic control of Congress. It calls for impeachment of the President in a de facto coup d’état. Ultimately, this is not merely an attack on Donald Trump. It is an assault on the presidency, the Constitution and the American people who voted for reform. It is time for Americans to be heard again in congressional offices, town hall meetings, rallies and on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. The message, says American Agenda, is simple : "To the President: We stand with you. To the media: Restore journalistic neutrality and ethics or be driven out of business. To the Republicans in Congress: Support the President, get back to work or be voted out of office. To Mitch McConnell: End the filibuster rule or resign and allow someone else to lead." • The 2018 House and Senate mid-term elections loom ever larger on the horizon. Washington pro's say Trump’s attacks on McConnell may widen the divide between the GOP establishment and conservative populists ahead of next year’s elections. That is true. But, my bet is that if McConnell and Ryan do not deliver on Obamacare and tax reform before the mid-terms, there will be many GOP incumbents cast aside -- not for Democrats but for the rising tide of Tea Party and other conservative candidates who have not given up, except on the Republican Party that looks more and more like it is part of the Swamp. • American voters will not let President Trump be impeached. They will not let his plan to save America and its Constitution fail. Beware, Senator McConnell. Beware Speaker Ryan. Beware GOP Congress. And, beware Progressive Democrats and Sugar Daddy George Soros. Pride goeth before a fall.