Washington (AP) – Halfway through Donald Trump’s first meeting of the White House with the Congress leadership day before the government was closed, the Red Hats appeared on the president’s desk.
“Trump 2028”, they said, which were located towards the seated legislators, Vice President JD Vance and several untouched diet cokes.
The democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries leaned to Vance, a potential competitor of 2028, and joked: “Hey, brother, you have a problem with it?”
The room giggled as an answer.
“It was the random thing in the world because we are sitting there, we have a serious conversation and suddenly these two red hats appear,” Jeffries later recalled in Capitol.
“It was all so bad,” said Jeffries and described a cameraman around who captured the moment. “For serious reasons, we were there that it wasn’t really a large part of the discussion. It was a theater.”
The moment was vintage Trump- attracting attention and trying to throw negotiators from their game- but it also underlined the respect of the president for the congress, a cooking of the government and in particular his opponents in political gait.
From the historical first meeting to viral trolling
What was once regarded as a historical occasion- the President of the United States, who called his first “Big Four” meeting of the congress leaders from the house and the Senate- was reduced to another viral souvenir from Trump who trolled his opponent.
And after the more than an hourly session, Trump was not able to conclude a contract with the leaders to prevent the Federal Government’s closure.
“We don’t want it to be switched off,” said Trump the next day in the White House, hours before midnight.
This was not just a routine meeting to lead the president and the congress. It was the first time that Trump gathered the leaders of the congress more than eight months after his presidency – and the first time that he and Jeffries had officially met.
But it was more surprising how little came out of it.
Health insurance for debate as president lists too
During the meeting of the White House, Jeffries and the democratic chairman of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, stated their arguments for saving health financing as part of the talks.
Trump said very little and listened more than talking, the leaders said.
“He didn’t seem to know about the health premiums that rise so much,” said Schumer.
With the Republican leadership, the spokesman for House, Mike Johnson and the majority leader of the Senate, John Thune, the conversation about her views of the health situation was enough.
“Living”, as Thune said later.
The discussion included the demands of the Democrats to ensure subsidies to assist people permanently take out private insurance on the stock exchanges of the Affordable Care Act. The subsidies have been set up during the Covid 19 pandemic and at the end of the year in some estimates will expire the premiums as far as twice as far.
The conversation also touched the fresh rural hospital fund, which is critical for the Republicans, and built under Trump’s great draft law to compensate for his cuts in Medicaid health service providers.
Johnson said Trump showed “a strong, solid tour. He listened to the arguments.”
Try to attract the president’s attention
This is the best that the Democrats could have hope – to have broadcast in front of the president who began the dial towards their demands. And it was what the GOP leaders wanted to avoid when every party tried to accuse the closure of others.
Johnson had knocked down Trump from a first meeting with the Democrats – after the president had agreed – and argued that it was a “waste of time”.
But Trump gave them up and granted them the Oval Office Office meeting on Monday on Monday.
The Democrats have been here before. During Trump’s first term in office, the President repeated contracts with the Democrats – “Chuck and Nancy” when he called Schumer and spokesman -Merita Nancy Pelosi to finance the government, augment the debt limit and achieve other goals.
These bargains have frustrated his own Republican party.
The Republicans, who are aware of this story, try to control the conversation in a different direction and leave the door open to discuss the problem of health care later with Democrats – as soon as the government has been reopened. They also had problems with the characterization of Trump, which was not aware of the depth or size of the health situation.
“I am very skeptical that the president heard about it for the first time,” said Vance afterwards.
A Republican who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting and granted anonymity for it, said Schumer’s proposal that Trump knew nothing about the subsidy problem.
So far, in his second term, the president was able to either employ executives and the cuts led by Elon Musk by German offices or with a compliant congress that brought through his signature tax break and expenditure, which was also underwent a Bill, which was generally referred to as a gigantic Bill Act, his mass deviations.
But Washington does not run alone in the White House, and the congress is not a majority stake. In order to transform most laws into laws, non -partisan compromises have to be incorporated and an earner, especially in the Senate, and especially with regard to the annual means that are necessary to keep the government going.
Then the sombrero came mocked
Hours after the legislators left the meeting, Trump’s team released a wrong video in which Jeffries in a sombrero with a faux mustache was decorated next to Schumer in front of the White House. It was widely considered racist.
“When I practiced law, there was a Latin sentence that was always one of my favorites,” said Jeffries in his office in the Capitol. “Res Ipsa Loquitur. It means that the thing speaks for itself.”
“On Monday we had a full broadcast of our positions, which should have set the baseline for a follow-up discussion from the administration in order to try to rehearse a sensible way to finance the government,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the president’s behavior deteriorated after the meeting of the White House to unresolved and unsatisfied action.”
