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Trump’s Vow to G.O.P. Lawmakers: ‘You’re Not Wasting Your Time’ Republicans Now Marching With Trump on Ideas They Had Opposed
(about 4 hours later)
PHILADELPHIA — President Trump pledged allegiance to a long list of Republican agenda items on Thursday, telling a gathering of the party’s lawmakers that, together, they will repeal the Affordable Care Act, lower taxes for businesses and the middle class, rebuild crumbling infrastructure and create millions of jobs. PHILADELPHIA — From the time he became their candidate until he took the oath of office, congressional Republicans treated President Trump’s policy pronouncements — largely out of step with Republican dogma — as essentially a distraction. He would talk. They would drive the policies.
“This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress we’ve had in decades, maybe ever,” Mr. Trump said at a Republican retreat here. Gesturing to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Mr. Trump said: “He’s writing his heart out. And we’re actually going to sign the stuff that you’re writing. You’re not wasting your time.” But now, the question of whether congressional Republicans would change Mr. Trump or Mr. Trump would change them has an early answer. Mr. Trump cheerfully addressed the group here at their policy retreat on Thursday, and they responded with applause to many proposals they have long opposed.
The president was met warmly in the room, particularly as he checked off the cabinet members and nominees who came from the congressional ranks — among them Mike Pompeo, the Kansas congressman-turned-C.I.A. director. Republican lawmakers appear more than ready to open up the coffers for a $12 billion to $15 billion border wall, perhaps without the commensurate spending cuts that they demanded when it came to disaster aid, money to fight the Zika virus or funds for the tainted water system in Flint, Mich. They also seem to back a swelling of the federal payroll that Mr. Trump has called for in the form of a larger military and 5,000 more border patrol agents.
“It’s like being actually led into the Promised Land by Moses,” Representative Tom Cole, a senior Republican from Oklahoma, said of Mr. Trump. “We’re there and he’s our leader and people feel very comfortable.” They have stayed oddly silent as Mr. Trump and Senate Democrats push a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, larger than one they rejected from President Barack Obama. Once fierce promoters of the separation of powers, Republicans are now embracing Mr. Trump’s early governing by executive order, something they loudly decried during Mr. Obama’s second term.
Aides said Mr. Trump made the trip so he could reach out to lawmakers to advance a legislative agenda in the weeks ahead. In his remarks, he bragged about having moved quickly on a series of executive actions covering areas like immigration, the environment and trade. But he said that broader changes would require legislation. Speaker Paul D. Ryan, whose own website this week still praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, now applauds Mr. Trump for putting the final shovel of dirt over the accord, with the president saying he is interested in bilateral agreements instead.
As Air Force One landed, Mr. Trump learned that President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico had canceled a planned visit to the White House next week, providing yet another distraction for a president whose first week has been filled with them. Many Republicans, who have been longstanding opponents of Russia and written laws that prohibit torture, have chosen to overlook, or even concur with, Mr. Trump’s embrace of both. Even on the subject of Mr. Trump’s call for an investigation into voter fraud, a widely debunked claim, Republicans have often demurred. “The notion that election fraud is a fiction is not true,” said the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
In his remarks, Mr. Trump described the cancellation as a joint decision. “We have agreed to cancel our planned meeting,” he said. “Unless Mexico is going to treat the United States fairly, with respect, such a meeting would be fruitless and I want to go a different route. We have no choice.” Mr. Trump said he could not wait for lawmakers to get to work on their newfound common ground. “This Congress is going to be the busiest Congress we’ve had in decades, maybe ever,” Mr. Trump said. In an apparent reference to forthcoming bills, he added, “We’re actually going to sign the stuff that you’re writing. You’re not wasting your time.”
Though Mr. Trump’s unpredictable behavior and scattershot policy has continued to catch lawmakers off guard, Republican leaders have taken care to project an air of unity since his election. “We are on the same page with the White House,” Mr. Ryan insisted on Thursday, speaking to reporters before Mr. Trump’s visit. Many Republicans in Congress say his presidency is off to a substantive start, delivering on campaign promises to quell illegal immigration, reduce regulations, start the rollback of the health care law and reverse the Obama administration’s decisions to halt the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects.
Mr. Ryan did say that Mr. Trump, on Twitter and otherwise, had compelled members to adjust their expectations of the White House. “This is going to be an unconventional presidency,” the speaker said. “That is something we are all going to have to get used to.” “I think he’s completely winning the expectation game,” said Representative Peter Roskam of Illinois. “I think he’s a genius at lowering expectations and overperforming,” he said, adding, “It’s really remarkable.”
Mr. Trump arrived in Philadelphia after his first official flight on Air Force One. He got a short tour of the plane after arriving at Joint Base Andrews on Marine One, aides said. After getting off the helicopter, he saluted and then walked up the stairs to the plane. In one significant way, congressional Republicans potentially seemed to pull Mr. Trump to their end of the policy pool. On Thursday, the administration initially appeared to endorse taxing imports as a way to pay for the Mexican border wall, reversing its earlier preference for imposing a heavy tax on companies that move jobs overseas. But the White House later said it was just one option under consideration.
The president had already given up his Boeing 757; when he flew down to Washington from New York the day before his inauguration, he flew on a government plane — not officially Air Force One because he had not yet become president. “We are in a very good place on tax reform,” Mr. Ryan said. “It can get complicated when you get into the details of tax reform, but once we go through how tax reform works and what it’s going to take to get the kind of competitive tax system, the kind of competitive tax rates, I think most people agree that this is the right approach.”
In his remarks, Mr. Trump told lawmakers that the American people had decided in the election that they wanted change. He bragged about his surprise victory, calling it a great night. Congressional Republicans are also struggling to keep up with Mr. Trump’s rapid-fire announcements, let alone push their agenda. “It’s fast-paced stuff,” said Senator John Hoeven, Republican of North Dakota. Investigating voter fraud, for instance, is not something he would like to see Congress take on. “Our priorities are the ones we laid out,” he said.
“Now we have to deliver,” the president said. “Enough all talk, no action. We have to deliver. This is our chance to achieve great and lasting change for our beloved nation.” They are also eager to get on with the rest of that agenda — specifically a repeal and, ostensibly, a replacement of the Affordable Care Act. “We are on the same page with the White House,” Mr. Ryan insisted Thursday. “The president agrees with this agenda.”
Mr. Trump received several standing ovations from the members of his party, including when he talked about ending overseas aide to groups that support abortion, rebuilding the military and eliminating regulations on the discovery and production of energy. The lawmakers also applauded when he pledged to keep working toward construction of his long-promised wall along the Mexican border. But it is the sudden embrace of federal spending that represents perhaps the most striking departure, with Republicans backing the concept of starting the financing for the border wall with a new appropriation.
Negotiations on the wall speak to how much Republicans appear willing to break with past positions on government spending to accommodate Mr. Trump. Though many have long shared Mr. Trump’s desire for a border wall, Republicans in Congress have often railed against spending plans that do not include offsetting cuts, even in emergency situations like a natural disaster. And the list is much longer. By contrast, last year, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, called Democrats’ request for $600 million in aid to Flint added to an energy bill “a huge earmark,” adding, “I think it’s not something I could support,” in keeping with most of his colleagues. Republicans pushed for and partially succeeded in offsetting a bill to fight Zika last year as well.
Mr. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, estimated on Thursday that Mr. Trump’s wall would cost $12 billion to $15 billion. They declined to address whether the expense would be offset by spending cuts. The talk of a spending surge has left some Republicans worried about an exploding federal deficit. “There are going to have to be some cuts,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah. “I am not interested in raising our spending levels.”
Mr. McConnell also shrugged off questions on whether Mr. Trump was compromising the United States’ relationship with Mexico by continuing to insist that Mexico will pay for the wall. (For now, Mr. Ryan suggested, the wall will be paid for with a supplemental funding request from the White House and existing federal funding to secure the border.) Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, seemed tense when asked about the open checkbook. “We’re a fiscally conservative group,” he said of the committee. “We’re going to want to see things paid for.”
“We intend to address the wall issue ourselves,” Mr. McConnell said, “and the president can deal with his relations with other countries on that issue and other issues.” Republicans are also at times confused about what Mr. Trump is actually seeking when he makes policy declarations on Twitter. “‘Appears’ I think is the big word,” said Representative Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania. “I don’t think anyone in the House of Representatives on the Republican side of the aisle wants to go through the legislative process,” only to have the Trump administration send a bill back, he said.
Mr. Trump, who has had a rocky relationship with Mr. McConnell and Mr. Ryan at times, went out of his way to praise both men. He called Mr. McConnell “a great guy” and said Mr. Ryan was “very, very special.” Republicans had expected to reveal great progress on their plans to replace the health care act here, but instead seemed stuck in a perpetual debate over the timeline of coming up with a replacement. Senators in large part made a strong argument for making sure that a replacement plan had been fashioned before repealing the law, while many in the House continue to push for a repeal with replacement coming much later.
Many questions about the specifics of legislative aims remained unanswered. But as Mr. Trump greeted them here, Republicans seemed content this week to revel in the early planning stages, and in their victory. Also notable is the Republicans’ acceptance of something they have despised: the use of the executive pen to make policy. Several House Republicans dismissed the notion that Mr. Trump would abuse his power to issue executive orders in the way they complained that Mr. Obama did during his second term.
“Everybody’s excited,” Mr. Cole said. “Nobody’s hit the hard parts yet.” “What you do by the pen can be dismantled by the pen,” said Representative Tom Reed of New York.
Mr. Trump is also trying to work his will on how the Senate operates. In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Mr. Trump said he thought Mr. McConnell should get rid of the Senate filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees, calling those who would oppose his coming pick “obstructionists.”
About three blocks from where Mr. Trump spoke, hundreds of protesters packed a plaza just across from City Hall to rally against the president. While the demonstration was organized around preserving the health care law, protesters showed up for a variety of causes. “I don’t trust anything he says,” said Ken Snyder, 62.