Reporting live from the White House, veteran reporter Neil W. McCabe offered behind-the-scenes insight into President Donald Trump’s meeting last week with Senate Republicans, arguing that the clash centered on more than just the SAVE America Act.
Speaking from the White House during an appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, McCabe said understanding the political dynamics requires looking at how the meeting came together.
According to McCabe, the luncheon originated with U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) rather than Senate Republican leadership.
“Rick Scott, the Florida Republican, ran against John Thune for leadership and lost on the second ballot,” McCabe said. “Rick Scott got something like 20 votes, and so Thune was not elected the majority leader by acclamation. He basically squeaked by beating Rick Scott.”
McCabe noted that Scott now chairs the Senate Steering Committee, the chamber’s conservative bloc, and invited Trump to speak during the group’s lunch.
“This was like Rick Scott did this without clearing it with Thune, without telling Thune,” McCabe said. “Thune basically read about it in the newspapers, as they say, and so he showed up to save face, but he wasn’t really thrilled about it.”
McCabe characterized the meeting as “really a flex by Senate conservatives to really put the Republican leadership on notice.”
During the meeting, U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) reportedly clashed directly with the president.
“Cassidy then got in a shouting match with the president, which, you’re not supposed to do that,” McCabe said.
While media reports emphasized Trump’s push for passage of the SAVE America Act, McCabe said another issue generated much of the president’s frustration.
“It turns out it wasn’t really the SAVE Act that got President Trump on his hind legs,” McCabe said. “What it was is their war power, the Democrats put up a war powers resolution that said that the United States had to stop combat operations against Iran, and four Republicans voted for it, so the thing passed.”
McCabe argued the vote complicated the administration’s diplomatic position.
He said, “The president is trying to negotiate with Iran, an end to hostilities, and so the Iranians see this and they say why would we negotiate with the Trump team when Senate Republicans are gonna just end this war for us and we give them nothing?”
McCabe pointed to the subsequent vote later that evening, when the resolution ultimately failed after changes in support.
“Rand Paul and Cassidy changed their votes,” he said, while also noting that U.S. Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA) had initially been absent because he was in Pennsylvania with President Trump.
McCabe also discussed the House Freedom Caucus’s effort to pressure the Senate by withholding support for House procedural votes until the Senate acts on the SAVE America Act.
He argued, however, that certain Senate practices have weakened the House’s leverage.
“Harry Reid, when he was the Democratic majority leader, what he devised is the pro forma session,” McCabe explained. “In effect, the Senate goes out of town, but they pretend to be in session.”
Under that process, he said, senators briefly convene every few days to satisfy the Constitution’s adjournment requirements while effectively remaining in recess.
“And that’s a problem,” McCabe said. “You’re trying to get things done. It takes away the House’s leverage over the Senate if the Senate can just get out of town without the permission from the House.”
McCabe also argued that the Senate’s use of pro forma sessions has prevented Trump from making recess appointments.
“The most important thing is that President Ronald Reagan got 240 recess appointments in eight years,” McCabe said. “President Trump has gotten zero in 45 and in 47, and there’s a slew of vacancies, there’s a slew of appointments that are waiting for confirmation.”
Asked about what he described as growing tension between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and the White House, McCabe said the disagreement reflects deeper ideological differences within the Republican Party.
He argued that many longtime Republican leaders have failed to adjust to changes within the party’s electorate.
“We’re now in the Obama-Trump paradigm,” McCabe said. “So all these Republicans who came into their own under Nixon-Reagan, their mindset is completely different from Trump, and they refuse to accept that the voters have changed their mind.”
“They’ve changed their mind on foreign adventures. They’ve changed their mind on open borders. They’ve changed their mind on China,” he added.
McCabe concluded by saying the divide is rooted in differing political eras.
“These guys like Thune and Romney and McConnell and all these guys, they’re just frozen in time,” McCabe said. “They won’t forgive Trump for not being Reagan, the same way William F. Buckley never forgave Reagan for not being Calvin Coolidge.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
