Tag: Republicans

With Polls and Private Meetings, Republicans Craft Blunt Messaging to Paint Democrats as Extreme

WASHINGTON — Republican leaders are sharpening and poll-testing lines of attack that portray Democratic policies on health care, the environment and abortion as far outside the norm, in hopes of arming President Trump with hyperbolic sound bites — some of them false — asserting that Democrats would cause long waits for doctors or make killing babies after birth legal.

The blunt messaging underscores one of the biggest challenges facing Democrats as they try to defeat the incumbent president: the need to define themselves and their ideas before Mr. Trump and his conservative allies do it for them.

The Republican National Committee has already begun polling in 16 states to assess ways to discredit ideas like “Medicare for all,” which Senator Bernie Sanders proposed in a bill this week, and build on the party’s broader argument that Democratic candidates like Mr. Sanders are promoting an extreme socialist agenda. Social conservative leaders have met with White House officials to discuss calling attention to Democratic-sponsored legislation to loosen restrictions on abortion in the second and third trimesters, like one that passed recently in New York.

View the complete April 12 article by Jeremy W. Peters on The New York Times website here.

GOP grows tired of being blindsided by Trump

Senate Republicans are getting tired of being caught off-guard by President Trump on key issues like health care and controversial nominees like Herman Cain, and say there needs to be more consultation from the White House.

Trump’s allies say they often find out about the president’s plans on Twitter or through media reports, making it almost impossible to offer the White House any advice before major decisions are announced.

“When names are floated, you guys come around and ask, ‘What about this person? What about that person?’” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the GOP leadership team, told reporters Wednesday, saying he would like to see “more communication and collaboration.”

View the complete April 12 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

How regulators, Republicans and big banks fought for a big increase in lucrative but risky corporate loans

Actions by federal regulators and Republicans in Congress over the past two years have paved the way for banks and other financial companies to issue more than $1 trillion in risky corporate loans, sparking fears that Washington and Wall Street are repeating the mistakes made before the financial crisis.

The moves undercut policies put in place by banking regulators six years ago that aimed to prevent high-risk lending from once again damaging the economy.

Now, regulators and even White House officials are struggling to comprehend the scope and potential dangers of the massive pool of credits, known as leveraged loans, they helped create.

View the complete April 6 article by Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.

Poll: Voters Distrust Trump And Republicans On Health Care

Trump has been ramping up his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act — and it could be disastrous for both Trump and his Republican Party, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll released yesterday.

The vast majority of voters, 59 percent, don’t trust Trump on the issue of health care, despite his fantastical claims that he’ll come up with some mythical plan that’s better than the ACA.

Forty-five percent of voters say they trust congressional Democrats to handle health care, while just 35 percent of voters say they trust Republicans on the issue. And 40 percent of voters say they trust congressional Democrats “to protect people with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage or charged more by health insurance companies,” while just 19 percent of voters trust Republicans to do the same.

View the complete April 4 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

With social program fights, some Republicans fear being seen as the party of the 1 percent

President Trump boasted this week that the Republican Party will soon be known as “the party of great health care.”

But a growing number of Republicans fear that it risks being tagged as the party of the 1 percent instead — handing Democrats a potent political message as the GOP pushes to gut former president Barack Obama’s health-care law and other popular federal programs, including those that help the poor and people with disabilities.

A spate of policy moves in recent weeks by Republican lawmakers and Trump administration officials has driven the party’s agenda hard to the right, giving new fodder to Democratic presidential candidates eager to shift the national debate to such issues as health care and jobs ahead of the 2020 election.

View the complete March 29 article by Robert Costa and Mike DeBonis on The Washington Post website here.

Mueller report doesn’t say what GOP says it does

Mueller’s primary mission was to see if he could establish an actionable case, and Barr’s letter said he couldn’t

ANALYSIS — The way GOP lawmakers reacted to Attorney General William Barr’s letter to Congress on Sunday outlining the key findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s final Russia investigation report, you would think special counsel prosecutors went out of their way to prove Trump’s innocence on collusion and obstruction allegations.

But statements from Republican leaders in both the House and Senate — and in the White House — do not accurately reflect the direct quotes from Mueller’s report that Barr included in his letter.

“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Mueller wrote in his report, according to Barr.

View the complete March 24 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

Conservatives wage assault on Mueller report

President Trump’s conservative allies are going on offense against special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, hoping to blunt any damning revelations that may emerge from the nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A senior Justice Department official has told media outlets that Mueller will not recommend new indictments against Trump’s inner circle, which Trump’s defenders have seized on to argue that the investigation was the “witch hunt” that the president always claimed it to be.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a staunch Trump ally, took to Twitter immediately to argue that the lack of additional indictments would reveal the investigation was a waste of time and taxpayers’ money.

View the complete March 23 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Trump keeps tight grip on GOP

President Trump has suffered a handful of high-profile legislative defeats in recent days. But you’d be mistaken to think Trump has lost his grip on the Grand Old Party.

Recent polls show that the president is still enormously popular among likely GOP voters — a fact GOP officeholders and those contemplating political bids in 2020 are well aware of.

“Trump’s endorsement is still the most sought-after thing for Republicans running for office. I’ve seen nothing that has equaled it in my political career,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and one of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, told The Hill in a phone interview.

View the complete March 18 article by Scott Wong on The Hill website here.

5 takeaways as Republicans close ranks at CPAC

NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND — Conservatives converged on this lavish resort development on the outskirts of Washington this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

The four-day event amounted to a preview of the Republican strategy as the party prepares to head into 2020, when President Trump and nearly two dozen GOP senators will face reelection.

That strategy, laid out by speakers and activists at CPAC, appears almost certain to hinge on a vow to combat what many conservatives see as “socialism” within the Democratic Party and to preserve the legacy of Trump.

View the complete March 2 article by Max Greenwood on The Hill website here.