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[Plinko]

John Harwood‏Verified account @JohnJHarwood

House Freedom Caucus source on opposition to GOP health bill after 24 hours of Trump/leadership lobbying: "stronger"

Freedom Caucus isn't budging.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I think this is a power play by the FC. And the GOP is so dysfunctional, they're letting the FC grab more power in the party by holding this bill hostage.

 

[Tamanon]

Honestly, this is a good opportunity for the Freedom Caucus to build up more influence. No surprise they won't back the bill.

Now they get to be seen as non-mainstream Republicans, which is ironic because that's what won people over for Trump.

 

[Future PhaZe]

The dems have every excuse in the world to obstruct and force the nuclear option. I don't understand why they wouldn't.

 

[Maxim726X]

Freedom Caucus isn't budging.

Holy shit. This really may not pass the House.

What a clusterfuck for this party and the Trump administration.

The dems have every excuse in the world to obstruct and force the nuclear option. I don't understand why they wouldn't.

Might as well force their hand now... They're going to use it as soon as possible anyway. If they do invoke the nuclear option, they will regret it soon.

 

[Pandora012]

Kinda curious, why do they call themselves the Freedom Caucus? Like what kind of freedom do they want that they don't have now?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

I wonder if this kicks Ryan out. This is the biggest failure of his entire career, and I doubt the FC likes him and Trump doesn't like him. He's bad at his job and they have all the evidence they could want to kick him out.

 

[Dierce]

Republicans are proven liars, traitors and sellouts. There is no way that they don't fall in line.

 

[royalan]

Kinda curious, why do they call themselves the Freedom Caucus? Like what kind of freedom do they want that they don't have now?

"Freedom _______________"

"_______________ Freedom"

"___________ Freedom __________"

"_____________ _____ __ ____________ Freedom __________ Dishwasher"


Pretty standard for the GOP. Pretty meaningless, too.

 

[jmdajr]

Kinda curious, why do they call themselves the Freedom Caucus? Like what kind of freedom do they want that they don't have now?

Freedom from entitlements!

 

[BoogieWoogie]

I wonder if this kicks Ryan out. This is the biggest failure of his entire career, and I doubt the FC likes him and Trump doesn't like him. He's bad at his job and they have all the evidence they could want to kick him out.

I am excitedly thinking about who Trump goes after first on Twitter. Does he start singling out members of the Freedom Caucus? Does he go after Ryan?

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Knowing that Trump holds grudges forever and never forgives at all, ever, for anything, Ryan is probably target #1 after his public remarks about Trump during the election.

 

[jtb]

Ryan is a politician without a base. Nobody wants what he's selling besides the WSJ editorial page.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Kinda curious, why do they call themselves the Freedom Caucus? Like what kind of freedom do they want that they don't have now?

Their primary agenda is bringing Freedom Fries back to the Congressional cafeteria.

 

[teiresias]

The fact that Trump put himself out there in the middle of the process this week only ties him even closer to the failure of this making it harder for him to exclusively blame Ryan.

It's a complete demonstrable failure of his "negotiating" skills and his ability to "win".

 

[Maxim726X]

The fact that Trump put himself out there in the middle of the process this week only ties him even closer to the failure of this making it harder for him to exclusively blame Ryan.

It's a complete demonstrable failure of his "negotiating" skills and his ability to "win".

Particularly because his 'negotiating skills' basically boiled down to threatening people over the phone.

Which is essentially what he's done all his miserable life.

 

[AndyD]

Can you imagine the legislation we could get if the GOP just said "screw you Freedom Caucus" and just started making bills with the Democrats

You know

Like an actual working government system

They could actually fix parts of ACA, they can eliminate the unpopular mandate (the penalty for a gap is not a bad idea provided it gives hardship exceptions) and focus on cost reductions and drug price negotiations and call it better. They are however stuck with having to repeal after years of promising it.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Ryan and Trump have so many more amazing ways they'll mess up this year

The budget is going to be a fiasco. Will the FC threaten their own party to shut down the government because they won't completely get rid of Social Security or something else nobody (sane) wants to cut?

Trump and friends haven't actually announced any major legislation that isn't just "OBAMA WAS A BAD DUMMY" legislation proposed out of spite. Are they going to go through their first year without any major policy?

How will that hold into 2018 when they go into midterms with literally nothing but embarrassment and failure under their belts?

 

[Crimson_Gold]

Ryan and Trump have so many more amazing ways they'll mess up this year

The budget is going to be a fiasco. Will the FC threaten their own party to shut down the government because they won't completely get rid of Social Security or something else nobody (sane) wants to cut?

Trump and friends haven't actually announced any major legislation that isn't just "OBAMA WAS A BAD DUMMY" legislation proposed out of spite. Are they going to go through their first year without any major policy?

How will that hold into 2018 when they go into midterms with literally nothing but embarrassment and failure under their belts?

Perhaps they'll blame brown people for it. Brown people are always to blame. Look at all the poppy fields in Harlem

 

[Blader]

I wonder if this kicks Ryan out. This is the biggest failure of his entire career, and I doubt the FC likes him and Trump doesn't like him. He's bad at his job and they have all the evidence they could want to kick him out.

Nobody else wants that job or probably even has the votes for it.

But if Ryan were to be vacated from that job, or felt he had exhausted his capital and decided to resign, and I'm a not-crazy House Republican looking to get some shit done in the next two years without the HFC holding a gun to my head on everything, then I think I would start thinking about having moderate House Rs and House Dems work together to circumvent the HFC altogether and elect a Charlie Dent-type to be Speaker. No more feckless ideologues or far-right bomb throwers, but actual, somewhat sensible legislators looking to work in a bipartisan fashion instead of pretending to care about bipartisanship but only catering to the most extreme elements of my base.

But maybe that's why I'm not a House Republican.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

@AlexNBCNews 3m3 minutes ago
More
UPDATE: Just 215 votes are needed to pass the GOP healthcare bill tmrw bc 1 D will be
absent -- means House Rs can afford to lose 22 votes

ruh roh

This will pass the house and I am glad it will pass the house.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Nobody else wants that job or probably even has the votes for it.

Which is pretty funny in hindsight when people were saying "oh no, the Democrat bench for 2020 is awful, the GOP has a huge bench!!!" and yet the second most important role in the US government and third in line for the presidency and there's nobody in the GOP who wants it or really, could even do it. Ryan didn't even want it, he was forced to, and it basically ended his future prospects. And he's terrible at it. The different GOP factions walk all over him.

ruh roh

This will pass the house and I am glad it will pass the house.

They don't have those 22 as of this morning. The FC has put their foot down.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Which is pretty funny in hindsight when people were saying "oh no, the Democrat bench for 2020 is awful, the GOP has a huge bench!!!" and yet the second most important role in the US government and third in line for the presidency and there's nobody in the GOP who wants it or really, could even do it. Ryan didn't even want it, he was forced to, and it basically ended his future prospects. And he's terrible at it. The different GOP factions walk all over him.



They don't have those 22 as of this morning. The FC has put their foot down.

Arm twisting will begin today.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Arm twisting will begin today.

Previous attempts to arm twist have just made the FC dig their heels in more.

This is a power grab by the FC. They're attempting to seize control of the party, they don't really care about the specifics of the bill.

There's also probably quite a few house GOP members praying the FC derails the entire thing because they don't want to vote on it.

If this was happening, there would be a lot more confidence around Washington.

 

[Veritigo_X]

Arm twisting will begin today.

Arm twisting has been going on all week. The president is literally threatening members of congress. No one is budging.

 

[Plinko]

Arm twisting will begin today.

It actually has been going on for a couple days, and FC members are saying they're leaning even further against it now. I don't think the threat of a primary is making them scared.

 

[BoogieWoogie]

It actually has been going on for a couple days, and FC members are saying they're leaning even further against it now. I don't think the threat of a primary is making them scared.

Yeah the primary threat has zero effect on the FC. Who are you going to even attempt to replace them with in their territories?

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Previous attempts to arm twist have just made the FC dig their heels in more.

This is a power grab by the FC. They're attempting to seize control of the party, they don't really care about the specifics of the bill.

There's also probably quite a few house GOP members praying the FC derails the entire thing because they don't want to vote on it.

If this was happening, there would be a lot more confidence around Washington.

Stuff like this is what I'll refer to when I say I don't really care about third parties. The Freedom Caucus is essentially acting like a third party right now that has their coalition to threaten with. If the GOP can't get the FC support, then the gov't crawls.

 

[Maxim726X]

Nobody else wants that job or probably even has the votes for it.

But if Ryan were to be vacated from that job, or felt he had exhausted his capital and decided to resign, and I'm a not-crazy House Republican looking to get some shit done in the next two years without the HFC holding a gun to my head on everything, then I think I would start thinking about having moderate House Rs and House Dems work together to circumvent the HFC altogether and elect a Charlie Dent-type to be Speaker. No more feckless ideologues or far-right bomb throwers, but actual, somewhat sensible legislators looking to work in a bipartisan fashion instead of pretending to care about bipartisanship but only catering to the most extreme elements of my base.

But maybe that's why I'm not a House Republican.

B..But you'll be working with the Democraps! They want to see the United States destroyed!!

In this hyper-partisan climate, we will *never* see something like this happen. Sadly.

Stuff like this is what I'll refer to when I say I don't really care about third parties. The Freedom Caucus is essentially acting like a third party right now that has their coalition to threaten with. If the GOP can't get the FC support, then the gov't crawls.

Hope the Dems are listening... Having an extremist wing of your party gain prominence gets in the way of legislation. You know- actual governance.

 

[Blader]

Politico: Hill Republicans say they're growing frustrated with Mattis

But Republican lawmakers and senior congressional aides said in recent interviews they're running out of patience with the former four-star general's staffing decisions, which have disappointed Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee members hoping to see their ideological allies elevated to senior levels in the Defense Department. Others are grumbling about Mattis's refusal to advocate for a bigger increase in the defense budget, which defense hawks believe was gutted disastrously under President Barack Obama.

”He certainly has got a tough job, but it sometimes feels like he forgets that we won the election," said one aide to a GOP senator on the armed services committee, who declined to speak on the record for fear of publicly alienating the defense secretary.

”We've waited eight years for this, to be able to fill these posts with Republicans," said another top GOP Hill staffer. ”We know Trump isn't part of the establishment and that it's going to be a bit different, but it should go without saying that a Republican administration is expected to staff federal agencies with Republicans."

The defense secretary has also rankled Republicans with his efforts to hire veterans of Democratic administrations, pushing unsuccessfully to bring on Michele Flournoy, who served as the undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration, as his deputy. He has more recently proposed to the White House nominating Clinton administration veteran Rudy DeLeon as undersecretary for personnel and readiness and Richard V. Spencer, a former Marine and investment banker now affiliated with the bipartisan Center for New American Security, as secretary of the Navy.

But that's unlikely to quell criticism on Capitol Hill, where Republicans on the House and Senate armed services committees say Mattis's troubles extend beyond personnel. They are frustrated by his failure to wage a political battle to raise the Defense Department's budget beyond the three percent increase initially proposed by the White House — or to fight to roll back the Obama-era Budget Control Act, which strips $1 trillion from the Pentagon budget over a decade. Mattis has told associates he will make it up to them when he proposes his own budget in 2019, according to a source familiar with the conversations, but that is not satisfying Republican hawks concerned in part about whether their party's majorities will hold through 2018.

Reminder that every single Senate Republican voted for Mattis. So much for that honeymoon!

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Stuff like this is what I'll refer to when I say I don't really care about third parties. The Freedom Caucus is essentially acting like a third party right now that has their coalition to threaten with. If the GOP can't get the FC support, then the gov't crawls.

In a "real" government, this would just force the GOP to work with Democrats to make bipartisan supported legislation

But that's not what's going to happen, and so we end up with no government for another few years. It's a miracle the government has been able to run on auto pilot for 7 years, what's another couple more?

 

[djplaeskool]

I will be genuinely impressed if the AHCA fails to get out of the House.

Like...seriously, you knew this entire process was going to be a cluster, but god damn...

 

[Maxim726X]

I will be genuinely impressed if the AHCA fails to get out of the House.

Like...seriously, you knew this entire process was going to be a cluster, but god damn...

If in fact the Freedom Caucus is united against it... Well, that enough should do it.

But even some moderates are voting no, from what I heard yesterday.

All this winning. I'm tired of it already.

 

[Emerson]

Senator Graham: "I haven't voted for a president who won in 12 years!"

lol

 

[Crimson_Gold]

Senator Graham: "I haven't voted for a president who won in 12 years!"

lol

Dropping the truth

 

[Pandora012]

Politico: Hill Republicans say they're growing frustrated with Mattis



Reminder that every single Senate Republican voted for Mattis. So much for that honeymoon!

Now if they only took the time to vet the man, they might have figured out he would not be their puppet...

 

[Nazgul_Hunter]

All this winning. I'm tired of it already.

This should be a campaign ad in 2018 (if Trump is still there).

Travel Ban
Mike Flynn
Russia
UK telling us off
ACHA

Tired of winning yet?

 

[Owzers]

It's hard to believe it won't pass. It's terrible, the GOP are terrible, only makes sense. I say it passes or something worse takes its place like removing a dictator.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

It's hard to believe it won't pass. It's terrible, the GOP are terrible, only makes sense. I say it passes or something worse takes its place like removing a dictator.

It's not going to pass because it's not terrible enough lol

 

[Geist-]

Senator Graham: "I haven't voted for a president who won in 12 years!"

lol

Damn, lmao.

 

[Pandora012]

It's not going to pass because it's not terrible enough lol

Which is terrifying

 

[balladofwindfishes]

Which is terrifying

If it was bad enough to get the FC on board it would be DOA in the senate.

The GOP is stuck. They either work with Dems, get the FC in line, or nothing will get done. Looks like they want the latter.

This is a cautionary tale that the far left should take to heart.

 

[Tommy DJ]

Republicans are proven liars, traitors and sellouts. There is no way that they don't fall in line.

They fall in line mentality happens if its politically beneficial to their end goal. People like Ted Cruz will let Trump say that his dad killed JFK if it means future political donations are secured. People keep repeating this but falling in line as the opposition and falling in line as the government are pretty different things.

In the case of this horrible health care bill, the Republicans (1) still share the country with people who mostly like the Affordable Care Act and government health services and (2) are currently dealing with an ideological shift in the party.

You have large parts of the party that simultaneously think the bill is far too harsh and far too lenient. The people who think its too harsh may privately admit that they like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act because it improves the quality of living for their constituents. The people who think its too lenient are the Freedom Caucus, who are ideologically opposed and generally unwilling to compromise on anything.

What the Freedom Caucus and what the other Republicans want are basically polar opposites. There's basically no compromise that really works here and Paul Ryan being terrible at his job doesn't help here. I'll be shocked if it gets through both the house and senate.

 

[Future PhaZe]

One question I have is couldn't Trump avoid all this trouble by aligning fully with the FC to begin with and submitting a bill they'd sign up for?

The moderates themselves seem more willing to go along with whatever Trump wants, so long as he supports their re-election.

 

[studyguy]

Shots fired outside UK parliament?
Hope no one was hurt.

Spoke too soon, oof

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

One question I have is couldn't Trump avoid all this trouble by aligning fully with the FC to begin with and submitting a bill they'd sign up for?

The moderates themselves seem more willing to go along with whatever Trump wants, so long as he supports their re-election.

Master strategist, Trump is not.

 

[BoogieWoogie]

One question I have is couldn't Trump avoid all this trouble by aligning fully with the FC to begin with and submitting a bill they'd sign up for?

The moderates themselves seem more willing to go along with whatever Trump wants, so long as he supports their re-election.

Trump is stupid. There's no way he's even read the plan Ryan cooked up with AHCA.

Also there would be no bill that the FC would want that isn't just getting rid of gov't healthcare entirely.

 

[FyreWulff]

One question I have is couldn't Trump avoid all this trouble by aligning fully with the FC to begin with and submitting a bill they'd sign up for?

The moderates themselves seem more willing to go along with whatever Trump wants, so long as he supports their re-election.

He literally thinks whatever he puts his name on will be approved because TRUMP!

 

[Maxim726X]

It's not going to pass because it's not terrible enough lol

To the Freedom Caucus.

Whereas to some moderate Republicans in relatively poor states... It's too terrible.

No one ever could have thought that governance could be this hard. Literally nobody.

 

[Pandora012]

One question I have is couldn't Trump avoid all this trouble by aligning fully with the FC to begin with and submitting a bill they'd sign up for?

The moderates themselves seem more willing to go along with whatever Trump wants, so long as he supports their re-election.

The problem is, he has made himself as the President that fulfills all promises. Aligning with the wants of the FC directly conflicts with the promises he made with his voters. It would be too blatant. Then again, nothing sticks to Trump so he'd probably be able to get away with it.