Less than 24 hours after the White House tried to tamp down reports that President Donald Trump was feuding with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Trump published tweets Thursday morning reigniting the standoff in the public sphere.
Trump began by preemptively blaming McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) for any difficulty in passing legislation to raise the debt ceiling.
I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval. They…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
…didn't do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
Trump followed up an hour later explicitly stating that he does have a “problem” with McConnell and chastising the Senate leader for failing to repeal Obamacare this summer.
The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed!That should NEVER have happened!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2017
The tweets from Trump come amid reports that he is in a standoff with McConnell. The two reportedly yelled at each other in an early August phone call during which Trump berated McConnell for not protecting him from the Russia probes, and the two have apparently not spoken since. Though the two have reportedly not spoken, they have taken jabs at each other in public.
Wednesday afternoon, both McConnell and the White House sought to quell the murmurings about their standoff with statements claiming that Trump and the Senate leader are in regular contact and are united.
But despite the White House communications office’s best efforts to dismiss the reports that Trump is at odds with Congressional leadership, Trump unraveled that narrative with his angry tweets Thursday morning.
Trump has also signaled that he is prepared for a big fight over the spending bill that Congress must pass by the end of September. During his Tuesday night rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump said he was willing to shut the government down in order to secure funding for his coveted border wall.
Ryan quickly dismissed the possibility of a government shutdown in September on Wednesday, a statement that may have irked Trump and prompted his Thursday morning tweets.
This post has been updated.
If trump thought the House Teas would blithly add the debt ceiling authorisation as a rider, he is even dumber than I thought. What magic wand does he think PR and MMc have?
Gee, I wonder what FOX and Friends suggested this morning?
Trump certainly didn’t come up with this idea on his own.
Maybe it was Dumb Jr.?
Paul R. and Mitch M. better get used to having very uncomfortable conversations with Nancy P. and Chuck S. They should also get used to having those conversations on their knees with hat in hand begging for votes. And if Republicans are willing to raise the debt ceiling cleanly AND pass a clean CR, Democrats should give them as the votes they need in order to get a veto proof majority. Democrats should do it for no other reason than to further sow division among Republicans while also humiliating the president. And if Republicans can’t muster the votes, enough Democrats should vote for it so that the blame lies squarely with the GOP.
Hahahahahhahahhaaaaaaaaaa!
Just keep kickin’ 'em, Donnie. They’ll love you for it in the morning.
What VA bill is Trump referring to?