There was a break-in over the weekend at the Las Vegas office of Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), a Republican senator who could be a critical swing vote on the GOP health-care bill, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Meanwhile, KLAS reports a “threatening note” was also left at the office after the break-in.
Norm Ornstein: “Since I came to Washington in 1969, I have been immersed in Congress and its policy process. I have seen many instances of unpopular bills considered and at times enacted. I have seen many instances of bills put together behind closed doors. I have seen bills enacted and repealed after a public backlash. I have seen embarrassing mistakes in bills, and lots of intended consequences.”
“But I have never seen a process like the one Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is using in the Senate with his so-called Better Care Reconciliation Act, BCRA, to presumably repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act; nor have I seen lawmakers responding to the bill, and their own constituents, this way.”
“By every past standard, and every logical standard of behavior in a representative democracy, this bill should be dead. It is not. Why not?”
For members: When You Have to Break the Rules…
Politico: “The Trump transition team and other Republican leaders presumed that Congress would scrap Obamacare by President’s Day weekend in late February, according to three former Republican congressional aides and two current ones familiar with the administration’s efforts.”
“Republican leaders last fall planned a quick strike on the law in a series of meetings and phone calls, hoping to simply revive a 2015 repeal bill that Obama vetoed. Few in the administration or Republican leadership expected the effort to stretch into the summer months, with another delay announced this weekend, eating into valuable time for lawmakers to tackle tax reform, nominations or spending bills.”
“It’s a presidency under siege. Unless some dramatic changes are made, I think there’s a real question about whether the presidency can survive.”
— Leon Panetta, quoted by USA Today.
Coming soon: Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose by Joe Biden.
Rick Klein: “It’s a dismal set of numbers, six months in. President Trump is pronouncing them to be ‘not bad at this time.’ He’s wrong as a historical matter, though not necessarily as a practical one. The president’s 36 percent approval rating in the new ABC-Post poll means he has his base, and that’s basically it. That’s how he is choosing to govern, with a slashing style and regular outrages – as perceived by all those who have been loyal throughout. He is both governing and communicating as if the other two-thirds of the country don’t matter, or matter less than those who elected him. Or maybe he’s just banking on the rest of the country’s getting used to the deception and misdirection.”
“Reading the poll based on how Trump’s inner circle does, the president enjoys an 82 percent approval rating among Republicans, pointing toward a motivated base and a Republican Party that’s not going to quickly abandon his legislative efforts. (How much does he need a strong economy in his equation?) What the president won’t sweat? The 63 percent of Americans who think Don Jr.’s meeting with Russians was inappropriate, or the 70 percent who view the president’s own behavior as ‘unpresidential.'”
“I would have much preferred to start off with tax. But that wasn’t my decision. Tax is the heavy lift here. It’s not going to be easier than health care. And we’ve been doing this for seven months.”
— Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), quoted by Politico.
Bloomberg: “Just 40% of Americans approve of the job he is doing in the White House, and 55% now view him unfavorably, up 12 points since December. Worse, even more — 61% — say the nation is headed down the wrong path, also up 12 points since December.”
“And despite his assurances that he and congressional Republicans will repeal Obamacare and replace it with a ‘beautiful’ new health care bill, 64% of Americans say they disapprove of his handling of the issue. That’s especially significant because health care topped unemployment, terrorism and immigration as the issue poll respondents chose as the most important challenge facing the nation right now.”
USA Today: “The first six months of Trump’s presidency were brutal. The next six months could well be worse.”
Politico: “Privately, Republicans said the delay could be as little as a week as McCain recovers in Arizona, though others worried it could stretch for several weeks and jeopardize the entire repeal effort… Whether the bill would advance even if McCain were in Washington is another question altogether, as the Arizona senator is one of more than half a dozen undecided Republicans, any one of whom could tank the bill.”
Politico: “The White House has met with at least three actual or prospective primary challengers to Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake in recent weeks, a reflection of Donald Trump’s strained relations with the senator and the latest sign of the president’s willingness to play hardball with lawmakers who cross him — even Republican incumbents.”
“Flake, a longtime Trump critic who refused to endorse the president during the 2016 campaign, is one of a handful of undecided Republican votes on the Obamacare repeal effort. He’s also one of the most vulnerable Republicans up for reelection in 2018.”
Playbook: “If Trump backs a challenger to Flake, it will be a big, big deal. The White House merely meeting with candidates is certain to raise ire in the Senate Republican Conference. Loyalty is a big deal in the Senate.”
David Nather: “There won’t be a Congressional Budget Office score of the revised bill today after all. In fact, a senior Senate GOP aide tells us it’s ‘highly unlikely’ we’ll see a score this week at all.”
“Every day heightens the risk that one more Senate Republican will come out against the bill — or that an influential political leader like Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval will, increasing the odds that Nevada Sen. Dean Heller will, too.”
“Despite speculation that the delay will buy time for CBO to analyze Cruz’s proposal, we’re told that’s unlikely too — because it could take weeks for the budget office to figure out its effects.”
Joe Scarborough: “I did not leave the Republican Party. The Republican Party left its senses. The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments. President Trump’s Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution.”
“The condition for which Senator John McCain had surgery on Friday may be more serious than initial descriptions have implied, and it may delay his return to Washington by at least a week or two,” the New York Times reports.
“But many questions have been left unanswered, including whether Mr. McCain had symptoms that prompted doctors to look for the clot. In June, his somewhat confused questioning of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, led to concerns about his mental status, which he later jokingly dismissed by saying he had stayed up too late watching baseball the night before.”
“The U.S. Secret Service said Donald Trump Jr. was not under protection during his meeting with a Russian attorney in June 2016, adding that they would not have screened any of his meetings,” Politico reports.
“On Sunday morning, Jay Sekulow, a member of Trump’s legal team, questioned on ABC News’ This Week why the Secret Service allowed Trump Jr. to meet Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.”
Said Sekulow: “Well, I wonder why the Secret Service, if this was nefarious, why the Secret Service allowed these people in. The president had Secret Service protection at that point, and that raised a question with me.”
Jonathan Swan: “Trump keeps top-line associations for many of the people around him, and White House sources say it’s important to know when you walk into a room with Trump what his top-line association is about you. For instance, Sebastian Gorka is the guy on TV who shreds ‘fake news’ hosts, and Wilbur Ross is ‘a killer’ who knows how to make money.”
“Trump’s top-line association for Sessions: The guy who showed tremendous weakness and caused tremendous problems by needlessly recusing himself from the Russia investigation. In Trump’s mind, Sessions bowed to political pressure and gave an opening to his enemies (Democrats and the media). Trump blames Sessions, in part, for his Russia headaches.”
Jonathan Swan: “Don Jr.’s Russia scandal may have one little upside for the White House: Two sources close to the health care negotiations told me they’re pleased it has distracted the “resistance” movement and moved much of the media spotlight away from McConnell & Co.’s negotiations.”
“Top White House officials and McConnell World sources share a mantra: Every day that passes without a third Republican senator coming out against the health care bill is a victory. That’s why the surprise vote delay for McCain’s surgery recovery is so perilous: It gives the bill’s opponents another week to hold protests, run TV ads, and remind squirmish purple-state Republicans that the ACA has twice as much support as the Republican’s alternative (50% to 24%, according to today’s ABC/WaPo poll).”
Key takeaway: “Everything hinges on getting the bill to the floor by finding 50 Republicans who will vote for a ‘motion to proceed.’ If McConnell can’t do that, it’s over.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.