One Republican senator wants President Donald Trump to light a fire under his colleagues. Another wants clarity on his policy priorities. A third is interested in hearing about tax reform and health care, while a fourth would prefer that Trump sticks to just taxes.
When Trump arrives on Capitol Hill for his first visit as president to the Republican senators’ weekly policy luncheon today, he will come face to face with dozens of GOP senators eager to hear him address an assortment of matters.
While GOP aides and senators predicted on Monday that Trump’s visit would center mostly on the ongoing effort to rewrite the nation’s tax laws, the broad array of topics on their mind, coupled with the president’s penchant for suddenly veering from one subject to another, could open the door to an unpredictable afternoon.
The difficult relationship between Trump and Republican senators adds another layer of uncertainty. Trump has criticized Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sharply for not repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Republican senators also have thrown some rhetorical elbows at the president.
“I want him to tell us to do our job,” said Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., a Trump ally who, like the president, has openly voiced his frustration that a handful of Republican senators sank the repeal-and-replace effort. He anticipated the president would argue that the tax reform push is “bigger than tax,” in that it marked a chance for Republicans to prove they can govern, among other things.
When Trump addresses the luncheon the Republican senators attend each Tuesday afternoon in a room near the Senate chamber, “it’s important for him to convey to us the things that he thinks are priorities, and not only with respect to the tax bill, but some of the other things that we are currently working on,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican senator.
One of the other things Republicans are wrestling with is health care. Trump’s decision to end federal subsidies to help offset lower-income Americans’ coverage costs led a bipartisan coalition of senators to offer a compromise bill that would authorize those funds. In exchange, states would have broader leeway in regulating coverage under the ACA.
Trump, who phoned Democratic and Republican lawmakers this month to push them to make a deal, has sent mixed signals on the plan, seeming to support it before backing away.
White House officials are urging Senate Republicans to move the bill to the right, by including provisions offering retroactive relief from the ACA’s insurance mandates for individuals and certain employers, according to people briefed on the talks.
“The White House has the ball right now,” said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican senator who took the lead on negotiating the bipartisan package.
“They’ve made some suggestions publicly about what they’d like to see in the bill. I’m for all of those things. The question is whether they can persuade Democratic senators to agree to that.”