As Senate Republicans ignore Donald Trump on infrastructure, House GOP falls in line

As Congress draws closer to passing a bipartisan $ 1,000 billion infrastructure bill, GOP senators seem more than willing to ignore calls from Donald Trump to block the bill. House Republicans, however, dutifully listen.

Over the weekend, 18 GOP senators – more than a third of the conference – voted to push forward legislation to fund roads, transit systems, broadband, etc., which they negotiated with President Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress.

An enraged Trump, who had previously criticized the bill, responded to the defections by detonating a series of lengthy statements calling the bill a RINO-backed ‘shame’, insulting the intelligence of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ( R-KY), and threatening to withhold approvals for any lawmaker who voted for the package.

“I hope,” said Trump, “the House will be much stronger than the Senate.”

While Trump’s free-form post-presidency reflections have tended to land like insignificant screams into the void, this post apparently did not. Since the Senate brought forward the bill last week, House Republicans have increasingly jumped on the MAGA line on the package: it’s a mess that will pave the way for socialism.

Trump’s vehement representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), for example, tweeted ahead of a key Senate vote on Sunday that her district was “sick and tired of these trillion-dollar socialist monstrosities.”

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) told Fox News on Monday that “the bipartite infrastructure package is in fact a gateway drug”, implying that GOP support will accelerate the adoption of an economic package. much more than $ 3.5 trillion that Democrats intend to spend. along partisan lines.

And in a tweet, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) used chilling quotes when mentioning the “infrastructure” bill and called it a “Trojan horse for an additional $ 3.5 trillion in politics and toxic debt ”that“ should be easily dismissed ”.

The fact that Trump spent four years discussing a paid and expensive infrastructure package that would likely have included many elements of the bipartisan deal would have been largely overlooked.

Instead, the ex-president’s opposition to this bill appears to be based on the small and the political, denying Biden a victory and relying on his favorite narratives midway through 2022. In addition to That, the Republicans most closely associated with the bipartisan deal Trump failed to strike as president are the ones he hates the most, like Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

“It probably strikes a chord with him because it’s a lot of Senate Republicans he hates and it’s something he wanted to do and never did,” a senior official said. of the GOP.

Even Trump supporters have openly acknowledged this reality. “He gave no reason why it was a bad deal, other than Joe Biden,” said Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), a supporter of the deal, during a segment. Fox News Business Sunday when he was grilled. by a skeptical Maria Bartiromo.

A strong Senate majority made up of Democratic and Republican senators believe the policy of the bipartisan infrastructure agreement is popular with the public, pushing them to cross the 60-vote Senate threshold and pass the legislation by Tuesday – a vote that would represent a rare bipartisan triumph in a torn Congress.

“Democrats want to make the case that the Senate is down and we can’t do anything, and so I think that’s pretty good proof that we can do it on a bipartisan basis,” said Sen. John Cornyn ( R-TX), who voted to move the bill forward.

“Obviously he still has weight,” Cornyn said of Trump. “But for me the most important thing in any vote is not who supports it or not in terms of non-constituents, but if your voters support it.”

But the response in the Republican ranks of the House reflects a much different political calculation.

Since January 6, the House GOP has increasingly solidified into a section of MAGA cheers, as their Senate counterparts have mainly sought to overtake Trump. The divergence has been clear on the key votes and in the behavior of the leaders of each chamber: Minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is deeply rooted in Trump’s fold while McConnell is effectively persona non grata.

The bipartisan infrastructure deal could provide one of the most striking split screens yet this year between the two wings of the GOP on Capitol Hill, and show how enduring the ex-president’s influence is then that he clings to his role as de facto party leader leading the charge against Biden’s agenda.

Trump’s argument against the bill “isn’t even that coherent,” the GOP senior aide told the Daily Beast, but the fact that he’s linked to Biden “will be enough for a lot of Republicans to of the House ”vote against, they predicted.

In the absence of easy lines of attack, defenders and conservative groups have struggled to figure out how to approach the bipartisan agreement; some have urged GOP lawmakers to ignore it and focus all their fire on the partisan $ 3.5 trillion bill that will contain a white list of Democratic priorities.

But it appears that Trump’s angry but confused opposition to the narrower and widely popular bill has reached party base, even affecting the calculations of GOP senators.

On Sunday and Monday, two GOP senators who voted to move the bill forward, Todd Young of Indiana and Jerry Moran of Kansas, announced they would vote against final adoption. They happen to be the only two Republicans out of the initial 18 to be re-elected in 2022.

Moran, who raised concerns about the federal budget deficit when announcing his opposition, has been under a campaign of pressure in his country because of his vote to move forward with the bill, orchestrated by a outside group associated with Marc Short, a former Trump White House official who is a senior aide to former Vice President Mike Pence.

Cramer admitted to New York Times that his constituents in North Dakota, in deep red, pained him for supporting the deal, saying some were “crazy as hell.”

But members of the House, who represent smaller, more ideologically polarized ridings who decide their fate every two years, are more vulnerable than senators to this kind of pressure. Liam Donovan, a GOP strategist, explained that the dynamic amplifies the apparent disparity in Trump’s influence that appears between the House and the Senate.

“The House is a majority institution, and both sides play their roles accordingly,” Donovan said. “And the policy is reinforced by its structure – you are always on cycle, accountable to a narrower constituency, and rarely have the opportunity to forge an independent brand that you can lean on.”

The House GOP may be much more Trumpier and less supportive of the infrastructure deal, but that doesn’t mean the conference is a monolith.

The Problem Solvers Caucus, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans, actively supported the package. Some GOP members believe House Republicans running through tough neighborhoods will eagerly seize the opportunity to claim a victory over funding for roads, bridges, airports, etc., even if it risks putting Trump down. angry.

McCarthy has kept his cards tight on the bipartisan deal, and insiders believe he will wait and see if President Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) can produce 218 votes for it from a group of passionate Democrats on the edge with a half a dozen voices for spare.

Still, some Republicans might savor a chance not only to achieve some basic political goals, but also to clearly stray away from a number that at least some of them believe is toxic to the party.

“If we ever want to stop the drug Trump,” said a GOP aide, “he just needs to take a bunch of L.”