Donald Trump may have just given away that he doesn’t have the Republican votes for his last hurrah
Republican politicians have never met a tax cut they didn’t like, at least when the primary beneficiaries are their own wealthy financial backers. So even though Donald Trump’s presidency has been so chaotic and inept that he and the Republican Congress haven’t been able to get their act together and pass one piece of conservative legislation, they should be able to pull off a tax cut bill as a last hurrah before it all falls apart. Yet Trump may have just signaled that he doesn’t even have enough Republicans on board to pull it off.
The tax cut bill will pass the House easily, where the Republicans have a large majority. But even in the Senate, the fifty-two Repblicans can pass it without Democratic support. Even if two GOP Senators defected, the remaining fifty plus the Mike Pence tiebreaker could get it over the top. So why is Trump suddenly putting intense public pressure on Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill to vote in favor of the tax bill?
It’s possible Trump is simply trying to hang this on her so the Republicans have something to use against her when she runs for reelection in 2018. But if that were the case, he’d be more likely to wait until she votes no, then use it against her later. Instead, the immediacy and specificity with which Trump is targeting McCaskill gives off a different feel. It suggests that perhaps the Republicans don’t know if they have the votes in the Senate, and that they’re reduced to trying to win over a Democrat from a moderate state to get it done.
If so, this would mean that at least three Senate Republicans are wavering on whether to vote “yes” on tax cuts. We saw this before with TrumpCare, but that was a half hearted piece of legislation to begin with. In contrast, tax cuts for the wealthy are the GOP’s bread and butter. It’s the one thing they should all be able to come together on, no matter how badly Donald Trump is flaming out. And yet it appears at least a few of them are so afraid to align themselves with a sinking Trump that they’re even hedging on their pet issue.
