WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Friday rejected Republican complaints about his decision to work with Democrats on fiscal and immigration matters, chiding his own party for failing to advance key legislation and calling on congressional leaders to immediately begin overhauling the tax code.
As the rift between the president and Republican lawmakers widened, the president argued that he had no choice but to collaborate with the Democratic minority to get business done, especially because the opposition has the power to block bills in the Senate, where Republicans do not have the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster.
"Republicans, sorry, but I've been hearing about Repeal & Replace for 7 years, didn't happen!" he wrote in a series of morning messages on Twitter, referring to the failure of party leaders to pass legislation overturning former President Barack Obama's health care law. "Even worse, the Senate Filibuster Rule will never allow the Republicans to pass even great legislation. 8 Dems control -- will rarely get 60 (vs. 51) votes. It is a Repub Death Wish!"
Trump pressed his party allies to accelerate efforts to revamp the tax code and lower taxes on corporations and workers.
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 200 days]
"Republicans must start the Tax Reform/Tax Cut legislation ASAP," he wrote. "Don't wait until the end of September. Needed now more than ever. Hurry!"
The Twitter messages came as Republican leaders chafed at his agreement this week with the Democratic leaders, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, to finance the government and pay its debts for the next three months.
Trump blindsided the Republican leaders, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who were pressing for an 18-month deal. Republicans complained that Trump had empowered the Democrats and made it harder to come up with longer-term fiscal legislation in December.
The president, however, was energized by the deal and the sense of progress after seven months of frustrated legislative efforts, and he reached out to Schumer and Pelosi on Thursday to see if they could work out further deals. He also signaled openness to a plan advanced by Schumer to end the perennial showdowns over the debt ceiling and agreed to a request by Pelosi to publicly reassure younger illegal immigrants worried about deportation.
Trump this week rescinded Obama's program protecting immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as minors on the grounds that it went beyond a president's authority. But he has offered to work with Democrats to fashion legislation that would reinstate the program on firmer legal footing, possibly in exchange for money for his plan to build a wall along the border with Mexico.
Trump has also begun to seek Democratic votes for his tax overhaul, something he did not do in a sustained way during the health care fight earlier in the year. He is alternately pressuring and wooing Democrats representing red states like Missouri and North Dakota and may find some support among moderates in the opposition party.
"I think he's becoming a little more pragmatic and, frankly, becoming a little more presidential in his ability to recognize that you don't get anything done around here unless you can find ways to work with both sides," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said Friday on CNN.
Watching on the sidelines were Republicans stewing at a president of their own party schmoozing with "Chuck and Nancy," as Trump called them. But they presume it will not last and that he will come to understand that he cannot trust Democrats nor find common ground with them on issues like the border wall.
By postponing larger questions of government spending and the debt ceiling until December, they said, he simply gave Democrats weapons to use to hinder or force concessions on the tax-overhaul proposal that may be coming to a critical debate around that time.
"This was a bad deal, this was a foolish deal," Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said on Fox Business Network. "He shot from the hip and he missed the target, and I think he thinks it's great now, but you guys all wait, when we're trying to do this big issues that we promised, this is going to come blow back right in our face, and it's going to be a big problem."
The deal that Trump struck with the Democrats won final passage Friday as the House voted 316-90 to pass it a day after the Senate voted 80-17. The legislation, which Trump signed into law later in the day, will keep the government open and solvent into December while providing $15.3 billion for disaster relief as Texas cleans up from Hurricane Harvey and Florida braces for Hurricane Irma. The dissenters in both houses were all Republicans.
A Section on 09/09/2017