By Zeke J. Miller
zeke-miller
For a President whose first year rests on the potential for a flurry of legislative action, Donald Trump seems to be doing all he can to make enemies on Capitol Hill. Trump embraced, then quickly about-faced, a bipartisan push to reinstate the cost-sharing subsidies under Obamacare he ended last week. As he backed away from the bill, he left a leading GOP Senator, Lamar Alexander, out to dry. Alexander told reporters Wednesday that Trump asked him to work across the aisle on the fix. But Trump's tweeted disavowal puts into doubt the legislative effort to keep premiums lower for as many as several million families. It's hardly the first time Trump has done this — and it's wearing thin on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are squeezed by a fractured Republican Party.
A day after mischaracterizing President Obama's treatment of Gold Star families, Trump is finding himself in hot water over his conversation with the family of a U.S. service-member killed earlier this month in Niger. Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson, who overheard Trump's conversation with Sgt. La David T. Johnson’s widow, recounted Trump saying that Johnson "knew what he signed up for," and that his comments troubled the widow, Myeshia Johnson. Trump took to Twitter to deny the account as a fabrication and claim that he possessed proof to that fact. But the account was subsequently confirmed by a family member to the Washington Post. The struggle to show empathy privately comes as Trump's public efforts as consoler-in-chief have been mixed.
Trump references John Kelly's killed-in-action son to criticize Obama. NAFTA renegotiation trouble. And the latest edition of "Roy Moore said what?"
