As a signal to Donald Trump?
They have been complaining to the media….
But?
When push comes to shove?
They line ups behind him so far….
Trump’s allies say they often find out about the president’s plans on Twitter or through media reports, making it almost impossible to offer the White House any advice before major decisions are announced.
“When names are floated, you guys come around and ask, ‘What about this person? What about that person?’” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the GOP leadership team, told reporters Wednesday, saying he would like to see “more communication and collaboration.”
“This is a nontraditional presidency, and the president now figures he doesn’t need a lot of advisers because he wants to do it himself. But there’s a lot of informal mechanisms and avenues for sharing information that are not really working very well now,” he added.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Thursday that they agreed with Cornyn that there needs to be more communication between the White House and congressional Republicans.
“I think that’s good advice,” McConnell told reporters when asked about his colleagues’ desire for more consultations.
“I agree with that,” Graham told The Hill.
GOP senators didn’t get any advance notice on several of Trump’s recent high-profile moves: his decision to rebrand the GOP “the party of health care” and his intention to nominate controversial partisan figures like Cain and Stephen Moore to serve on Federal Reserve Board.
McConnell had to tell Trump in a follow-up phone call on April 1 that Senate Republicans did not intend to move a health care reform package before the 2020 election. Trump had surprised GOP lawmakers a week earlier when he told them in a private lunch meeting to put together legislation to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which Trump’s Justice Department is opposing in court.A few days later, Trump caught GOP lawmakers flat-footed again when he said he planned to nominate Cain, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate who dropped out of the race when sexual harassment allegations emerged, to a top Fed post.
Floating Cain’s nomination came on the heels of Moore, another highly controversial Fed pick. After Trump announced his intention to nominate Moore — the founder of the conservative Club for Growth, which has spent millions of dollars in ads against Republican and Democratic candidates — it was revealed that he owed more than $75,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties.
Trump announced his planned Fed nominees before checking in with the Senate, and it now appears that Cain doesn’t have enough votes to win confirmation….