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9 tweets,
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This captures the essence of the Trump-GOP relationship: they privately influence him to adopt their agenda, and then happily publicly credit him for it, while ignoring the Trumpism agenda. Serves their needs and his. But limits are becoming apparent.
s2.washingtonpost.com/f97ef2/5c54ec5…
s2.washingtonpost.com/f97ef2/5c54ec5…
As Trump seeks to assert more agenda-setting influence in Congress (and through unilateral action), the GOP becomes forced to *publicly* respond against him. This kills the implicit bargain of GOP agenda and Trump credit, and also reveals the overall weakness of Trump.
And here’s my general argument about Trump and presidential power.
The emerging problem is that Trump appears to be heading toward trying to assert greater agenda-control in the 116th Congress, for a variety of reasons: frustration with the GOP burying his campaign agenda; interest in confrontations with the Dems; pressure from his base.
But as the emergency declaration issue shows, the GOP isn’t going to be able used legislative agenda setting tactics to hide their rift w/ Trump. And that means visible fracturing, and likely means showing off a week president with little influence.
And so their main objective is to convince him to stay on their agenda—by privately counseling him to avoid the National Emergency Gambit that could lead to a disapproval resolution, and accepting a face-saving deal they construct.
But we’re also seeing this all over foreign policy. Trump is unilaterally making moves that contradict GOP positions—in Syria, in Afghanistan, etc.—and they are being forced to respond quite visibly, and he seems helpless to stop it.
When a weak president seeks to assert agenda control in Congress on issues that his own party doesn’t want to take up and doesn’t agree with, it’s going to be a bloodbath. The GOP was able to mask this presidential weakness by rolling him for 2 years. That may be over.
