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Don’t Expect Any Replacement for Obamacare
Jonathan Chait: “The Republican Party has used health care to its advantage for the last seven years by following the same strategy: advocating an alternative plan that does not and cannot exist. During this entire time, President Obama has held power. This has afforded them the luxury of posturing against the status quo — and, indeed, doing everything in their power, at both the federal and the state level, to make it worse. Republicans could denounce the messy negotiations in Congress, and then the messy reality of American health care, while promising that giving them power would let them start over and design a new reform that would protect everybody without having any objectionable features.”
“After the election unexpectedly put them in full control of government, I predicted they would follow a ‘repeal and delay’ plan, because it is the only way to keep the lie going. The closer they get to taking action, the more clear it becomes to Republicans that their own propaganda has trapped them and given them no escape. Railing against Obamacare was easy, but the responsibilities of power have taken all the fun out of denying medical care to the poor and sick.”
New Congress Poised to Unravel Obama Policies
“The most powerful and ambitious Republican-led Congress in 20 years will convene Tuesday, with plans to leave its mark on virtually every facet of American life — refashioning the country’s social safety net, wiping out scores of labor and environmental regulations and unraveling some of the most significant policy prescriptions put forward by the Obama administration,” the New York Times reports.
“Even before President-elect Donald J. Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, giving their party full control of the government, Republicans plan quick action on several of their top priorities — most notably a measure to clear a path for the Affordable Care Act’s repeal. Perhaps the first thing that will happen in the new Congress is the push for deregulation. Also up early: filling a long-vacant Supreme Court seat, which is sure to set off a pitched showdown, and starting confirmation hearings for Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees.”
More from the Washington Post: GOP Congress maps sweeping plans for conservative agenda.
Playbook: “Does the Senate cool the House down, by ignoring some of its more aggressive legislation? How much bloodletting will there be over replacing Obamacare? How much does Trump’s infrastructure package shrink, and how long will it take to come to fruition? Will all of Trump’s Cabinet nominees survive? Where do conservatives in the House pick their battles, and can they keep their outsized relevance?”
Perdue Seen As Trump’s Pick for Agriculture
“Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is the leading candidate to be tapped as Donald Trump’s secretary of agriculture. Perdue has won statewide office twice, theoretically making his confirmation easier,” Playbook reports.
“Agriculture and veterans affairs are the two cabinet posts that Trump has not yet filled. Of course, as we’ve now learned, Trump sometimes changes his mind. Nothing is official until it’s announced.”
Obama Will Give Farewell Address from Chicago
President Obama “will give a farewell address next week from Chicago, his hometown, most likely his last chance to defend his legacy directly to the country before Donald J. Trump is sworn in,” the New York Times reports.
Trump Will Take Office In Historically Weak Position
Gallup: “As Donald Trump prepares to take the presidential oath on Jan. 20, less than half of Americans are confident in his ability to handle an international crisis (46%), to use military force wisely (47%) or to prevent major scandals in his administration (44%). At least seven in 10 Americans were confident in Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in these areas before they took office.”
“Americans express somewhat more confidence in Trump to work effectively with Congress (60%), to handle the economy effectively (59%), to defend U.S. interests abroad as president (55%), and to manage the executive branch effectively (53%). But even in these areas, Americans are far less confident in Trump than they were in his predecessors, when comparisons are available.”
Priebus Faces Daunting Task In Trump White House
Washington Post: “The role in Trump’s inner sanctum is, by some measures, a surprising spot for Priebus. After the party’s 2012 defeat, the party chairman presided over an autopsy report that called for courting minorities by, among other things, embracing looser immigration laws. Trump, who campaigned on building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and endorsed mass deportations, effectively rejected the recommendation — and won anyway.”
“The power-sharing dynamic between Priebus and his new colleagues looks worrisome to those who have had Priebus’s title in prior administrations. Some predict flatly that it will not work.”
What Is Trumpism?
New Yorker: “Now that Trump is the President-elect, plenty of prominent conservatives are hoping that he will govern as a reliably conservative Republican. Decius, the faceless blogger, is hoping instead that Trump’s Presidency will mark the dawn of a new kind of conservative movement. He is one of a handful of pro-Trump intellectuals who have been laboring to establish an ideological foundation for the political tendency sometimes known as Trumpism.”
“Politicians, as a rule, do not trouble themselves overmuch with the opinions of intellectuals, and Trump is unusually untroubled by debates about political philosophy. But these intellectuals—a group that includes anonymous bloggers and prominent academics—maintain that he does have a distinctive world view. In their argument, his unpredictable remarks and seemingly disparate proposals conceal a relatively coherent theory of governance, rooted in conservative political thought, which could provide an antidote to a Republican Party grown rigid and ineffective.”
How Long Will GOP Congress Stay Unified?
Politico: “Since Republicans will control all the levers of power in Washington for the first time in almost a decade, they’ll hit the ground running on some issues: Both chambers, for example, hope to pass a budget blueprint that makes a critical down payment on repealing Obamacare even before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.”
“But it won’t take long for the inherent divide between Senate and House Republicans to rear its head. The House wants to pass a number of bills to scrap Obama-era rules and curb executive branch regulatory powers. But those will be a much heavier lift in the upper chamber.”
Wall Street Journal: Republicans take control facing internal tensions
Ex-Bush Official Says Trump Is an ‘Addict’ for Media
Nicolle Wallace, who served as communications director during George W. Bush’s administration, said Donald Trump craves the press “like an addict craves their drugs,” The Hill reports.
Said Wallace: “We’ve just elected a man who bullies female reporters at his rally as an applause line. We have just elected a man who started a hot war with a female anchor instead of attending a debate she moderated,” referencing Fox New’s Megyn Kelly.
She added: “We are in a new place. And I don’t think it’s good. And I don’t think it has any parallels to the past.”
Putin Moves to Take Advantage
Politico: “From Moscow, Vladimir Putin has seized the momentum of this unraveling, exacting critical damage to the underpinnings of the liberal world order in a shockingly short time. As he builds a new system to replace the one we know, attempts by America and its allies to repair the damage have been limited and slow. Even this week, as Barack Obama tries to confront Russia’s open and unprecedented interference in our political process, the outgoing White House is so far responding to 21st century hybrid information warfare with last century’s diplomatic toolkit: the expulsion of spies, targeted sanctions, potential asset seizure. The incoming administration, while promising a new approach, has betrayed a similar lack of vision. Their promised attempt at another ‘reset’ with Russia is a rehash of a policy that has utterly failed the past two American administrations.”
“What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.”
Democrats Will Target 8 of Trump’s Cabinet Picks
Washington Post: “Incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) has told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that Democrats will home in especially on Rex Tillerson, Trump’s choice for secretary of state; Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), his pick for attorney general; Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), tapped to lead the Office of Management and Budget; and Betsy DeVos, selected to serve as education secretary.”
“There’s also Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and oversee changes to Obamacare, who is expected to be attacked by Democrats for his support for privatizing Medicare. Andrew Puzder, a restaurant executive set to serve as labor secretary, will face scrutiny for past comments on the minimum wage, among other policies. Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs partner set to serve as treasury secretary, and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, will also be the focus of Democratic attacks, aides said.”
Moderation Hasn’t Been the Path to Victory
David Weigel: “In 2004, the last time that Democrats comprehensively lost a national election, an argument broke out about how the party should reform. John F. Kerry had been just one state — Ohio — away from victory. Democrats had lost Senate seats in red states, but held their own in the House and in state legislatures. (Republicans netted three seats, but would have lost a net of two seats but for mid-decade gerrymandering in Texas.) Hillary Clinton loomed as the favorite for the party’s 2008 presidential nomination, but it was clear to many pundits that the party needed someone else. No, not Barack Obama. Clearly, the party needed a moderate nominee from red America.”
“Clinton, indeed, did not win the 2008 nomination. Sixteen years of speculation about her inevitable presidency ended on Nov. 8. But the hand-wringing of 2005 is just as instructive as the Republicans’ hand-wringing of 2013. In recent history, the most confident analysts of our political parties have argued that victory will come through moderation. They have been completely wrong.”
What We Still Don’t Know About Donald Trump
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The Winter White House
New York Times: “President George W. Bush had his ranch in Crawford, Tex. His father had his compound in Kennebunkport, Me. President Obama has taken frequent vacations in Hawaii, staying at a private home.”
“But Mr. Trump’s 118-room private club, where he has spent the last two weeks away from his home in New York, is likely to eclipse them all as the 45th president’s winter White House. And that was always the intention of Marjorie Meriweather Post, the cereal heiress and the property’s original owner, who left Mar-a-Lago to the federal government when she died in 1973, hoping it would serve as a home for presidents.”
Obama Tries to Cement His Legacy In Final Days
“Only two days after the election, President Obama sat by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s side in the Oval Office and declared that the No. 1 priority in his last days in the White House would be ensuring a smooth transition of power,” the New York Times reports.
“What Mr. Obama did not say was that he also intended to set up as many policy and ideological roadblocks as possible before Mr. Trump takes his oath of office on Jan. 20.”
“With less than three weeks before the Obama White House is history, making way for a new administration with radically different priorities, the president is using every power at his disposal to cement his legacy and establish his priorities as the law of the land.”
How Nixon Scuttled Peace Talks to Win 1968 Election
“Richard M. Nixon always denied it: to David Frost, to historians and to Lyndon B. Johnson, who had the strongest suspicions and the most cause for outrage at his successor’s rumored treachery. To them all, Nixon insisted that he had not sabotaged Johnson’s 1968 peace initiative to bring the war in Vietnam to an early conclusion. ‘My God. I would never do anything to encourage’ South Vietnam ‘not to come to the table,’ Nixon told Johnson, in a conversation captured on the White House taping system,” the New York Times reports.
“Now we know Nixon lied. A newfound cache of notes left by H. R. Haldeman, his closest aide, shows that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks, which he feared could give his opponent, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an edge in the 1968 election. On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to ‘monkey wrench’ the initiative.”
Gingrich Worries Trump Team Won’t Be Tough Enough
Newt Gingrich told ABC News that his greatest worry is that President-elect Donald Trump and his team will “lose their nerve” once in office.
Said Gingrich: “Look, they’re going to arrive in Washington, and for them to be successful they have to stake out positions that DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile will not like and the left will hate. I’m worried that when they realize how big the problem is, that they decide that they’re just going to do the best they can and give in.”
He added: “You’re going to have the government employees going crazy about civil service reform. You’re going to have the teachers union going crazy over school choice. And these are pretty nonnegotiable. I mean, if you’re serious about school choice, there is no agreement with the teachers union.”
