Freedom Caucus Cartoons

EPA chief: Trump to undo Obama plan to curb global warming

EPA chief Scott Pruitt

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency says President Donald Trump in the coming days will sign a new executive order that unravels his predecessor's sweeping plan to curb global warming.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt says the executive order to be signed Tuesday will undo the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, an environmental regulation that restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.
The 2015 rule has been on hold since last year while a federal appeals court considers a challenge by coal-friendly Republican-led states and more than 100 companies.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Pruitt said Trump's intention is to bring back coal-mining jobs and reduce the cost of electricity.
Supporters of former President Barack Obama's plan say it would spur thousands of clean-energy jobs.

Kushner to lead new WH office focused on using business ideas to fix gov't bureaucracy

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will be tapped to lead a new White House office that will effort to use business solutions to fix “government stagnation”, a senior White House official told Fox News Sunday.
"We can confirm we are making an announcement tomorrow to establish the White House office of American Innovation and look forward to sharing additional details," the official said.
The office will be filled by former business executives and seeks to bring in new thinking into Washington, the Washington Post reported. The Post first reported that Kushner would head the new office.
“We should have excellence in government,” Kushner said. “The government should be run like a great American company. Our hope is that we can achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.”
Trump told the newspaper that the office would focus on fixing “government stagnation.” It will have the authority to overhaul federal bureaucracy and fulfill campaign promises – such as reforming health care for veterans and fighting opioid addition. Kushner would report directly to Trump.
Kushner hopes to bring in aggressive, nonideological views into team and he seeks talent from inside and outside Washington. The Post reported that the office is focused primarily on technology and data and is working with Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gate, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk.
Some of the tech giants have openly criticized Trump’s policies but insist they are eager to help the administration with its issues.
“I’m hopeful that Jared will be collaborative with our industry in moving this forward. When I talk to him, he does remind me of a lot of the young, scrappy entrepreneurs that I invest in in their 30s.” Benioff told the Post.
This effort has been developing since shortly after the inauguration, the official said.
Trump's daughter Ivanka, who is married to Kushner and has a West Wing office but no official job, will get involved on issues she is focused on, such as workforce development.

Poe quits Freedom Caucus in aftermath of failed ObamaCare overhaul

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas

The fallout over House Republicans' failed ObamaCare overhaul bill continued Sunday when Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, resigned from the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
Poe intended to vote in favor of the bill and personally told President Trump last week that he would support the measure.
“To deliver on the conservative agenda we have promised the American people for eight years, we must come together to find solutions  to move this country forward," Poe said in a statement. "Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do. Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective member of Congress and advocate for the people of Texas. It is time to lead."
Poe resigned hours after President Trump called out the Freedom Caucus and conservative groups Club for Growth and The Heritage Foundation for not supporting the measure.
“Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!,” Trump tweeted.
On Friday, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., canceled the final vote for the ObamaCare replacement bill after concluding he didn’t have enough support despite the chamber’s GOP majority.
Ryan was purportedly about 20 votes short of the requisite 216, amid strong opposition from the chamber’s conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has 30 to 40 Republican members. Several moderate House Republicans also did not support the bill, written by Ryan and his leadership team.
In the days leading up to the planned vote, Trump suggested those who wouldn’t support the overhaul bill could lose in their 2018 reelection primaries. And in a closed-door Capitol Hill meeting last week, the president made clear to Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., that he would hold the congressman responsible if the bill failed.
Trump and Ryan spoke Saturday and Sunday. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the leaders spoke Saturday for roughly an hour about “moving forward on (their) agenda” and that their relationship is “stronger than ever right now.”
Strong also said Trump made clear Sunday that his tweet earlier in the day had nothing to do with the speaker.
“They are both eager to get back to work on the agenda," she said.

Schumer jumps at chance to work with Trump on health care, other issues

Eric Shawn reports: Health care, take two

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer jumped at a chance to find common ground with President Trump on coming up with a solution to a new health care bill Sunday as Trump’s aides opened the door to working with moderate democrats on health care and other pressing issues.
Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump must be willing to drop attempts to repeal Barack Obama’s signature achievement, warning that Trump was destined to “lose again” on other parts of his agenda if he remained obligated to appease conservative Republicans.
“If he changes, he could have a different presidency,” Schumer said on ABC’s “This Week.” "But he's going to have to tell the Freedom Caucus and the hard-right special wealthy interests who are dominating his presidency ... he can't work with them, and we'll certainly look at his proposals."
Trump turned the blame for the failure of the health care law from the Democrats to conservative lawmakers Sunday, tweeting: "Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare!" The bill was pulled from the House floor Friday in a defeat for the Trump, having lacked support from conservative Republicans, some moderate Republicans and Democrats.
Trump aides made it clear Sunday that the president could seek support from moderate Democrats on upcoming legislative battles ranging from budget and tax cuts to health care, leaving the door open on possibly revisiting new health care legislation.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus scolded conservative Republicans, explaining that Trump had felt "disappointed" with a "number of people he thought were loyal to him that weren't."
"It's time for the party to start governing," Priebus told “Fox News Sunday”. "I think it's time for our folks to come together, and I also think it's time to potentially get a few moderate Democrats on board as well."
The health-care bill’s failure caused a ripple effect in the Freedom Caucus.
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, resigned from the group. Poe intended to vote in favor of the bill and personally told Trump last week that he would support the measure. He resigned hours after Trump’s tweet.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, told ABC’s “The Week” that he was doing a lot of “self-critiquing” after the health care defeat. He insisted the GOP overhaul effort was not over and that he regretted not spending more time with moderate Republicans and Democrats "to find some consensus."
Much of the blame has been directed at the conservative group and its roughly 35 members, after House Speaker Paul Ryan realized that he didn’t have enough support for the bill in the GOP-led chamber and canceled the final vote Friday.
Ryan purportedly needed about 20 more votes, mostly from Freedom Caucus members and a handful of GOP House moderates.
Trump and Ryan spoke Saturday and Sunday. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the leaders spoke Saturday for roughly an hour about “moving forward on (their) agenda” and that their relationship is “stronger than ever right now.”

Freedom Caucus Jokes & Cartoons

Biden says he could have won the presidency if he ran

Former Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday that if he had run for president in 2016 he could have won.
Biden told students at Colgate University in New York that the Democratic primary would have been "very difficult."
Biden said his son Beau's battle with brain cancer kept him out of the race.
Biden said anyone who runs for president should be able to "look the public in the eye and promise you they can give you 100 percent," the Observer-Dispatch of Utica reported.  

More on this...

• University launches Biden research and policy institute

• Estranged wife: Biden son wasted money on drugs, prostitutes

The former vice president says that he doesn't regret not running, but added, "Do I regret not being president? Yes."
Biden also added that he hopes President Donald Trump "grows into the job a little bit."

Arrests after scuffle breaks out at California Trump rally

A scuffle broke out on a Southern California beach where President Donald Trump supporters were marching as counter-protesters doused organizers with pepper spray, authorities said Saturday.
The violence erupted when the march of about 2,000 people at Bolsa Chica State Beach reached a group of about 30 counter-protesters, some of whom began spraying the irritant, said Capt. Kevin Pearsall of the California State Parks Police.
Three people were arrested on suspicion of illegal use of pepper spray and a fourth person was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery, Pearsall said.
Pearsall added that two people had suffered minor injuries, not requiring medical attention.
One anti-Trump protester who allegedly used the eye irritant was kicked and punched in the sand by Trump supporters, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Before the march started the counter-protesters had said they intended to try and stop the march’s progress with the use of a “human wall.”

Divided GOP makes dismantling ObamaCare little more than campaign promise

Speaker Ryan stuns Washington by yanking the health bill

There was supposed to be a death panel when it came to ObamaCare: Congressional Republicans.
Starting in 2009, Republicans in Congress promised to euthanize the then-bill, later law. They’d kill it. “Repeal and replace” was the GOP mantra as the party stormed the House in the 2010 midterm elections.
Republicans echoed the incantation in 2012 and 2014. The “repeal and replace” declaration even helped Republicans capture the Senate in 2014. The House and Senate voted on a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare in 2015-16. But President Obama vetoed it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., argued that’s why it was essential that voters reward the party with “unified government.”
“I’m tired of divided government,” Ryan said. “It doesn’t work very well.”
The speaker never thought President Trump would make it to the White House. He feared Trump’s lewd, “Access Hollywood” tape wound sandbag GOP House and Senate candidates across the country. Trump was the GOP presidential nominee and slated to speak at a political rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin the day after the tape materialized.
Ryan fretted about what Trump’s appearance on the stage would mean for himself and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., locked in a competitive re-election campaign, as control of the Senate swung in the balance.
The speaker disinvited candidate Trump.
But Ryan is a pragmatist. When Trump captured the White House, the GOP maintained control of the Senate and Democrats barely dented the Republican majority in the House.
Ryan’s vision of unified government became a reality. With unified government, Republicans could repeal and replace ObamaCare, undo dozens of Obama-era policies and finally retrench the tax code.
It was easy to vote dozens of times to repeal ObamaCare when Republicans used dummy ammunition on a target practice range that doubles as the House floor. But as soon as the ordnance went live, it blew up in their faces.
Republicans have never held a roll call vote in the House to replace the 2010 health care law known since the party took control in 2011. The Senate never held a roll call vote on an ObamaCare replacement plan since taking the majority in that chamber in 2015.
That streak remains intact today. Republicans have never agreed on any health care replacement plan that would pass the House and Senate.
It’s not hard to decipher the code around Capitol Hill if you know what to look for.
The House Rules Committee -- the gateway for legislation to the House floor -- met for nearly 13 hours Wednesday without setting the groundwork for the chamber to consider the GOP health care bill for debate Thursday.
“The deal hasn’t been cut yet,” bemoaned committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, just before midnight Wednesday.
Ryan and the rest of his leadership team conducted a lengthy conclave in his office Wednesday night with members of the “Tuesday Group,” an amalgam of 54 moderate Republicans led by Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent.
Most everyone then escaped out a back exit to elude a throng of press waiting in the hallway. Dent’s office quickly published a statement declaring his opposition to the health care package. The usually-genial Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, speed-walked out the front, ignoring reporters’ questions and not even making eye contact.
But the reticence spoke volumes. Many moderates were disgusted.
“It’s a terrible deal. Leadership is asking the Tuesday Group to vote for it so leadership doesn’t look bad for pulling the bill,” lamented one member who requested anonymity. “Members are asked to walk the plank.”
Moderate Republicans faced the most exposure on this bill and could pay with their seats if they voted yea.
Meantime, negotiations continued with the conservative House Freedom Caucus. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, top adviser Steve Bannon and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney (who co-founded the caucus when he served in Congress) descended on Capitol Hill for a short meeting Thursday night with all House Republicans.
Their message?
“Let’s vote,” Bannon said.
“It’s up to those guys in there,” said Mulvaney, jerking his head over his right shoulder toward Republicans huddled in a conference room in the basement of the Capitol.
“You heard a lot of members tonight express their passion about getting this done,” said House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., afterwards. When asked if he was still whipping the vote, Scalise replied, “We will have more conversations tonight.”
Several senior House GOP sources made clear that the administration was responsible for converting nays to yeas. Some House Republican leadership figures and White House sources openly lit into the Freedom Caucus, saying there was an effort to “isolate” those members for never budging.
“Nothing’s changed,” sighed exhausted caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., after the meeting. “I’m not confident in anything right now. All I’m confident in is I’m going home to go to bed.”
People weren’t home in bed very long. Updated bill text arrived just before midnight Thursday, courting the likes of some moderates.
GOP Reps. Tom MacArthur, N.J.; Martha McSally, Ariz.; Elise Stefanik, N.Y.; and Tim Murphy, Pennsylvania, all applauded the changes. The Rules Committee scheduled a 7 a.m. meeting to prepare the updated bill for the floor Friday.
“The directive to us last night was to put our pencils down and turn our papers in,” said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, as the House GOP prepared the health care bill for debate.
But something was amiss.
Vice President Pence was slated to head to Little Rock, Ark., and Memphis, Tenn., on Friday morning.
But the vice president cancelled the trip on little notice, and motored to the GOP’s “Capitol Hill Club,” a hangout just behind the Cannon House Office Building. A secretive huddle with members of the Freedom Caucus at the Capitol Hill Club would avoid reporters streaming through the Capitol.
Ryan then dashed off to the White House to meet with the president.
There would be no need for either event if the vote count was solid.
The magic number to pass a bill in the House was 216, with 430 sitting members and five vacancies. The number necessary for passage was expected to be a little lower as there are always absences. (Hey, you try getting 430 people in the same room at the same time). Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill.,  was out because his wife passed away.
The House usually conducts a series of “bed check” votes ahead of major issues on the floor. Such votes are often on parliamentary issues or non-controversial bills.
The checks enable leaders to determine how many members are actually present that day and also do final assessments of where members stand on an issue. On those roll calls, the total of members voting ranged between 422, 424 and 420. That meant the threshold to pass the health care bill could be 212, 213 or 211 yeas.
But the House was never within striking distance. If Republicans were within a vote or two, the GOP brass might be able to lug it across the finish line. But this bill was going to fail. Forging ahead with a roll call vote would put a lot of members on the record on a bill destined for the dust heap.
“It is going to be tattooed to you,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., warned Republicans on Wednesday night at the Rules Committee, looking in the GOP direction of the dais.
Everyone knew the gig was up around 3:30 p.m. et Friday. Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., presided over the House and recessed the chamber “subject to the call of the chair.”
The term means the House is out  but will meet again at an undetermined time. If everything was set, they’d hold the vote.
TV monitors all around the Capitol flipped onto a graphic known as the “screen of death.” The picture shows the Capitol Dome with a waving U.S. flag. The words “The House is in recess subject to the call of the chair” are emblazoned across the top.
Republicans failed.
The exercise underscored that the internecine schisms that divided Republicans during the presidential election and under the tutelage of former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, still remain.
Some members think Boehner was no longer effective. Members of the Freedom Caucus helped nudge his departure in October 2015. Would things be different under Ryan?
Maybe. But not really. New speaker. Same membership.
Boehner often engineered a coalition of Democrats and Republicans to pass major legislation. Avoiding a government shutdown. Wrestling with the debt ceiling. But no Democrat was going to vote to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Republicans were on their own. And without help from the other side of the aisle, Ryan could never get to 216, 213, 212 or even 211 yeas.
“We had roughly 200 votes,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Oregon, one of the authors of the GOP health care bill.
The question now is how much political capital did Republicans exhaust in this effort? They have to fund the government by April 28. A fight over the debt ceiling looms. Trump, Ryan and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, say now it’s on to tax reform.
Damage for Ryan?
When Boehner resigned, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., surfaced at the Capitol one day and spoke of what led to Boehner’s exit.
“In the leadership, you take on barnacles like a ship at sea and they start to weight you down after battle,” said Lott, bounced from his post in 2002. “Once you get in the leadership, there ain’t no such thing as purity.”
Ryan’s ship certainly accumulated major barnacles in this fight.
And ObamaCare remains.
That’s because Republicans have divided government. Yes, they have the House, Senate and White House. But the GOP remains fractured and fratricidal.
So why was “repeal and replace” such an effective campaign tool for Republicans?
Perhaps it’s just that. A great campaign tool. Kind of like tax reform. What lawmaker doesn’t campaign on lowering taxes? Yet no major updates to the tax code in decades. How about abortion? Settled law. But both sides campaign on the issue and little changes.
Gun control? Democrats invoke the Columbine, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino and Orlando shooting massacres. A crazed gunman shot former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in the head -- ironically delaying the House GOP’s first vote to repeal ObamaCare in January 2011. Yet the firearms issue hasn’t evolved much since 1994. Both sides deploy guns as a campaign issue.
And so here we are with repealing and replacing ObamaCare.
The screen of death flashed on TV monitors all over the Capitol Friday afternoon. Repealing and replacing Obamacare was dead. And by nightfall, some Republican lawmakers were blasting out statements, pledging to continue the repeal and replace fight.

Pence vows Trump will continue ObamaCare fight, calls out Democrats and Republicans

Vice President Pence tried Saturday to deliver a pep-talk to Americans after fellow Republicans’ failed effort to overhaul ObamaCare -- admitting that members are “back to the drawing board” but vowing that President Trump will “keep fighting.”
Pence spoke in the aftermath of House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday cancelling the final vote for the ObamaCare replacement bill, upon concluding he didn’t have enough votes despite the chamber’s GOP majority.
Republicans Ryan and Trump after announcing the cancellation, sounded as if efforts to fulfill campaign promises to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law were essentially finished.
Ryan publicly said Americans would be living with ObamaCare for the “foreseeable future,” while Trump simply told The New York Times, “It’s enough already.”
However, Trump and Pence on Saturday seemed to come back fighting.
“ObamaCare will explode, and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE,” Trump tweeted. “Do not worry!”
Pence later said at a business event in Charleston, West Virginia, that small-business owners in the state repeatedly tell him about the need to dismantle ObamaCare because it “stifles growth” and slows job creation.
“President Trump is never going to stop fighting to keep his promises to the American people,” he said
He also argued those who claimed victory in Republicans’ failure Friday are merely championing the status quo and said, “I promise you, that victory won’t last for long.”
Pence also put pressure on West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat, to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch as the next Supreme Court justice.
However, he also made clear that Gorsuch, Trump’s pick, would be confirmed “one way or another,” implying that Senate Republican leaders would invoke parliamentary tactics to win confirmation with a simple, 51-vote majority.
Pence was joined at the first event by Small Business Administration leader Linda McMahon, who helped start and run World Wrestling Entertainment.
“Maybe we could have used a couple of WWE superstars on Capitol Hill yesterday,” Pence, who did his share of arm-twisting for ObamaCare reform, said jokingly.
On Friday, after the vote was cancelled, Trump appeared to already be focusing on tax reform and returning to his plan to allow ObamaCare to continue -- with the expectation that the 2010 health care law would implode amid increasing costs and dwindling options for Americans.
Still, his tweet Saturday suggested a potential willingness to work on a bipartisan plan on overhauling the law -- albeit a scenario in which Democrats come to the GOP-controlled Congress to work together on improvements.
Late Friday, Tennessee GOP Sen. Bob Corker also suggested the fight to replace ObamaCare was not finished.
“At some point, on behalf of the American people, we have to resolve the issues that are driving up costs, limiting choices, and causing the individual market to spiral downward,” he said. “I stand ready to work with the administration and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in order to fix our broken health care system.”