President Trump and the GOP Congress Are Beginning to Work in Sync

TRUMP AND THE GOP ARE GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER. They may seem to be scrapping often but beneath the words, a sense of urgency to get on with the Trump-Conservative agenda is building. • • • TRUMP SUPPORTS CORKER. While Steve Bannon and his team are opposing RINOs in Congress who simply do not and will never agree with Trump or any conservative point of view on any issue, and are providing conservative candidates to challenge them in the 2018 primary season, that is not the whole story. • TheHill wrote on Sunday that Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee "finds himself squeezed from all sides, as President Trump’s allies mull the prospect of taking the Senator down from his right and Democrats ready a challenge for the general election. Corker, once considered a possible pick for vice president, angered Trump allies after criticizing Trump for his response to white supremacist violence in Charlottesville." Steve Bannon has expressed interest in backing a primary challenge against Corker. BUT, the Tennessean newspaper published the good news on Tuesday that reported : "President Donald Trump is encouraging Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee to run for another term, according to two people familiar with a meeting between the two Republicans at the White House last week. The Friday meeting was the first between Corker and Trump since they clashed over the President's comments about a violent white supremacist rally in Virginia last month." The Tennessean said the White House declined to comment. Corker hasn't said if he's running again but he had a $6.5 million balance in his campaign account at the end of the last reporting period, the most among GOP Senators facing re-elections next year, and has since increased his cash on hand by $1 million, according to his office. Corker, who is chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said his decision will be coming soon. Corker also put to rest the rumors about there being a feud between the President and him over his criticizing the President for blaming both white nationalists and anti-racist protesters for the violence at the Charlottesville rally, questioning whether Trump had shown the "stability" and "competence" to succeed in office. Trump then responded on Twitter : "Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in '18. Tennessee not happy!" Corker told reporters last week : "For people to try to act as if there is daylight between us as a result is just not true." • This is one of those incumbent races that should be supported across the board by Republicans because of the small Senate majority held by the GOP, who are trying to add to it in 2018. Bob Corker, who advised Trump on foreign affairs during the campaign and has remained close to the President, will win and keep the Tennessee seat on the GOP side of the aisle. • • • BANNON'S CONSERVATIVE CLOUT. Steve Bannon, back as chief at Breitbart News and at the head of a vast network of conservative donors and activists, including billionaire Trump backer Robert Mercer, has floated the idea of backing primary challengers to incumbent Senators. While trying to oust Senator Corker is not a good idea for Bannon, he could make a difference in Alabama by his backing of state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore’s bid to unseat Senator Luther Strange in Alabama’s upcoming Senate GOP primary runoff. This is an odd race in which Senate Majority Leader McConnell supports Strange, and President Trump has joined in and may go to Alabama to campaign for Strange, despite the fact that Strange is an "insider" establishment type who would probably fit right in with the GOP elites, whereas Moore is a populist whose views are much more compatible with those of the Deplorables who support Trump. Sometimes politics does indeed make 'Strange' bedfellows. • Bannon has also expressed interest in supporting primary challengers running against Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, a #NeverTrump Senator who can not be counted on to support either McConnell or the President. Bannon should make a real difference in Arizona. • These GOP primaries will be interesting tests of whether Steve Bannon has real grassroots clout when he is out on his own and not tagging along on Donald Trump's coattails. BUT, Bannon's foray could be dangerous for the Trump agenda, because replacing incumbents with untested candidates has often led to a GOP defeat in the general election. For example, Democrats are looking on with glee at the possibility of Republicans tearing into Senator Corker. Leading Democratic hopeful James Mackler, an Iraq War veteran and attorney, has already won support from Democrats who see him as their best option for the difficult red-state election in Tennessee. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman David Bergstein said in a statement : “The Republican primaries raging across the Senate map will drain resources from the GOP, damage their eventual nominee and exacerbate the fissures within their party.” While it is unlikely that a Democrat can beat any Republican in the Tennessee Senate race where Trump is extremely popular, in other states where he intervenes, Bannon could be rolling the dice and come up snake-eyes in a year when holding on to the 52 GOP seats and adding to that total to get to 60 is an aggressive but achievable Republican goal aimed at providing filibuster-proof passage of Trump's conservative legislative agenda. • • • OBAMACARE REPEAL IS NOT DEAD. TheHill reported on Wednesday that GOP odds are rising on an Obamacare repeal. And, in a real surprise, Senator Lindsey Graham is sponsoring the solution. Senator Graham is now predicting that his Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill will get 50 votes. TheHill says : "The Trump administration and Republican leaders in Congress are going all-in on a last-ditch effort to replace Obamacare. Earlier this month, the GOP effort was all but dead as Republican leaders pivoted to tax reform. But the healthcare legislation has picked up a significant amount of momentum over the past several days." Graham said : "I’ve never felt better about where we’re at," after Senators met with Vice President Pence to discuss the new health-care proposal. “At the end of the day, I really believe we’re going to get 50 Republican votes,” Senator Graham added. Other GOP Senators said the measure has a real prospect of success. Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune told reporters : “Our members are thinking about it, they’re studying it. They’re talking to the authors of the bill. But I think we’ve made good headway.” • TheHill says the unexpected second wind for the Obamacare repeal effort has been helped greatly by the deal President Trump struck with Democrats earlier this month to fund hurricane relief and postpone a battle over federal spending and the debt limit until December. According to TheHill : "Republicans at the time panned Trump for cutting GOP leaders out of the loop, but now his decision looks like a master stroke as it has created time on the schedule to take a second shot at health-care reform." The September 30 deadline to act under reconciliation has also played a leading role in the rising prospects of the legislation. If an Obamacare replacement bill isn’t signed into law by then under budget reconciliation rules, it would later need 60 votes to pass. Under the special reconciliation rules, 50 votes plus a tie-breaker from Pence would send it to the House, where leading Republicans have indicated they would pass it and send it to Trump’s desk before the end of the month. • The newest repeal effort, named after co-sponsors Graham and Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician, would largely dismantle Obamacare and convert its funding to block grants to states, empowering them to design new programs. Democrats warn the block grants would be too small and would lead to cuts in Medicaid and other health-care spending. The bill would also allow states to waive Obamacare rules, including the prohibition on people with pre-existing conditions being charged higher premiums, however, despite Democrat fake news, any state waiving pre-existing condition coverage would have to explain how it would provide other coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. • TheHill said that Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told GOP lawmakers at Tuesday’s meeting that this is their last chance to fulfill their promise to repeal Obamacare. Senator Ron Johnson, another one of the bill’s sponsors, described Pence’s message as “really strong.” McConnell warned colleagues that “if we do nothing, Obamacare continues” and “this is the last best chance for putting ourselves back on a path where states get greater control,” according to Johnson. • Pence and Graham discussed how to whip up support for the bill while on Air Force Two Tuesday during a flight back to Washington from New York, where they attended Trump’s address to the United Nations. Pence told a pool reporter on the flight that President Trump and the entire administration strongly back the new measure and have called Senators and governors to build political support. Trump phoned Graham late Monday evening to encourage him and promise his backing. Pence said, according to the pool reporters : “This is the moment. Now is the time. We have 12 days." • But, disagreement is beginning to surface once more -- and from the same RINO GOP Senators. Conservative Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has already announced he will oppose the legislation because it does not fully repeal Obamacare, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine has said she is also a likely no. Paul backed the prior Senate health-care measure while Collins rejected the bill, which was defeated by one vote. Collins has expressed concern that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) will not be able to deliver a full analysis of the legislation before a possible vote next week and said Tuesday she did not receive any new information after meeting with Pence. True to RINO form, Collins has introduced her own 'bipartisan' proposal with Senator Bill Nelson of Florida that would help states create reinsurance programs for their insurance markets to lower health-care premiums. TheHill says "at least four other Republicans are undecided, including Senators Arizona's John McCain and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski. Both voted against the pared-down Obamacare repeal bill before the August recess. Senators Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Shelley Moore Capito West Virginia said they are also undecided about the legislation, which would deliver big cuts in federal aid to their home states. • The effort suffered a setback Tuesday when several key governors -- most importantly Alaska Governor Bill Walker, an Independent -- released a letter expressing opposition : “We ask you not to consider the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson amendment and renew support for bipartisan efforts to make health care more available and affordable for all Americans,” Walker wrote, along with other governors, including Republican John Kasich of Ohio and Brian Sandoval of Nevada. Murkowski said she is in close consultation with Walker. The governors praised a bipartisan effort at an Obamacare stabilization measure that had been under negotiation in the Senate Health Committee. Pence on Tuesday, however, slammed the door on the possibility of moving legislation to shore up the individual insurance markets, noting that Speaker Paul Ryan has pledged it doesn’t have enough votes to pass the House, after he spoke with Ryan by phone during Pence’s return flight to Washington. Ryan has also told McConnell that a stabilization bill from the Senate Health Committee “isn’t viable” in the House, according to a source familiar with the discussion. • Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, the most vulnerable Republican Senator facing re-election in 2018, was a swing vote during the health-care debate earlier this summer, but he is a co-sponsor of Graham-Cassidy, and is taking an added great risk to his re-electability -- his party solidarity move that should be supported by Republicans. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who had been leading the talks on a stabilization bill, declared the effort over Tuesday. • So, it is looking like the Republicans are facing their last chance to repeal Obamacare and avoid the single payer proposal introsuced by Senator Bernie Sanders and 16 of his Democratic colleagues. Senator Graham told reporters : “Here’s the choice for America : socialism or federalism when it comes to your health care." Graham says the bill he’s co-sponsored would redistribute money now disproportionately being spent in four Democratic states -- New York, California, Massachusetts and Maryland -- to the rest of the country. Senator Dianne Feinstein accused Graham and Cassidy of unfairly targeting her state -- and we could ask if they are targeting California in the way she targeted a Trump judicial nominee for her Catholic faith?? • No Repubican should let future payment amounts for their state, which always have a way of being worked out later, stop them from voting for the Graham-Cassidy bill. To vote against it is to vote against the Republican Party. • • • TAX REFORM KICKS OFF. On Tuesday, Senator Corker unveiled some tax reform details. Senator Corker, a key member of the Senate Budget Committee, released details Tuesday about the guidelines the Committee resolution would include for tax reform. Corker told reporters that the budget resolution that will unlock the process for reconciliation -- the procedure that will allow Republicans to pass tax reform without Democratic support -- could be marked up in the coming week or two, depending on whether the Senate is focused on healthcare. Corker said a deal was in the works in the Committee to write a significant amount of tax breaks into the reconciliation instructions, in order to increase lawmakers' flexibility in the legislative process. In order to take advantage of reconciliation, the Senate will have to both adhere to the instructions written by the Budget Committee and follow certain other strict rules pertaining to deficits. • CEOs say they are optimistic on tax reform and are making plans for more hiring. The nation's top CEOs were more optimistic in the July-September quarter, with plans to boost hiring by the most in six years as Congress and the White House push forward with tax reform as a priority. The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook Index -- a composite of CEO projections for sales, capital spending and hiring over the next six months -- rose to 94.5 in the third quarter, the highest level since the second quarter of 2014, and up from 93.9 in the spring. Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and chairman of the Roundtable said : "The survey results demonstrate that CEOs remain confident in the US economy and that we must seize on the opportunity to continue to press for pro-growth economic policies that create jobs and fuel wage growth at all levels of the economy. Our CEOs are committed and actively engaged in the effort to pass tax reform because they recognize that it will make us stronger as a country and create more opportunity for all Americans." • Tax reform seems to be on the way as Republicans fall in line behind President Trump's promise to create a tax code that favors jobs and reduces wage earners' tax load. • • • DEAR READERS, the Republican Party is finally on the move with President Trump. It is just the beginning and we must hope that things will not fall apart on Obamacare repeal because of a few RINO Senators. • As we often do, let's give the last word to Newt Gingrich, who told American Thinker : “It takes enormous leaders to get bills through both the House and the Senate. To accomplish something, there is a need to have a leadership who knows what it is doing, communicates to the American people to get their support, and then through the American people gets the support of Congress. A perfect example is when President Trump went to North Dakota with a popular tax cut message. What I would do is build a coalition in every state of everyone who wants a tax cut and ask them to pressure members of both parties.” Gingrich said that as a congressman in 1984, he saw that the Democrats were obstructionists. He sees similarities between the Democrat behavior then and now : “The fight started by Reagan and sustained by us, is the same fight of Trump today. What happens is they get into Washington surrounded by other Democrats who have this groupthink where they like to be mutually reinforced, a collectivist behavior that never wants to break rank. These people voting against the Trump agenda could be career ending; especially in the states where Trump won overwhelmingly like West Virginia, Indiana, North Dakota, and Montana. It appears that they are out of touch with their constituents. The average American repudiates Democratic Party values. I predict in 2018 we will hold our own in the House and pick up 4 to 6 seats in the Senate.” He thinks conservatives should see the glass half-full by looking at the accomplishments, including the court system moving to the right, the biggest deregulation underway in history, and a real effort toward tax reform. Regarding health care reform, Gingrich said : “I believe people do not realize that 49/52 Republicans voted correctly in the Senate. There were sixteen Democratic no's for every Republican yes. We are only focusing on the one, not the 48 Democrats who got a free pass.” • So, there we have it from the man who's been there and done that. The GOP will add 4 to 6 seats in the Senate. There could not be better news on the Friday after President Trump hit a home run at the UN General Assembly. • Make America Great Again. It is going to happen !!!