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Between Trump and a hard place, Speaker Ryan is the ultimate middleman


FILE - In this April 4, 2017 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. pauses during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington to talk about the failed health care bill. From cancer to addiction, doctors and patient groups are warning that the latest Republican health care bill would gut hard-won protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Some GOP moderates who may seal the legislation’s fate are echoing those concerns.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - In this April 4, 2017 file photo, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. pauses during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington to talk about the failed health care bill. From cancer to addiction, doctors and patient groups are warning that the latest Republican health care bill would gut hard-won protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. Some GOP moderates who may seal the legislation’s fate are echoing those concerns. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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The recent weeks' bruising fight over the the health care replacement bill has not only brought out the divisions in the Republican conference, but has made clear that House Speaker Paul Ryan is stuck in one of the most difficult jobs in Washington, being the middleman between President Donald Trump and a fractious party.

President Trump took office with a list of major legislative initiatives he wanted to pass during his first 100 days, but he was not prepared for the delays and roadblocks that have been thrown up by members of his own party in Congress. Now the president's top legislative priorities, health care, tax reform, building a border wall and getting to work on the 2018 budget, have all been delayed despite the Republicans controlling all three branches of government.

Over the weekend, Trump told Fox News that he is "disappointed" with the dynamic in Congress. At the same time, Trump was careful not to criticize any of the GOP factions on Capitol Hill, least of all Speaker Ryan, who he needs to unify the party.

"I'll tell you, Paul Ryan's trying very, very hard," the president said. "He's under tremendous amount of pressure. I do have confidence in him."

The Republican Party also has confidence in Ryan. All but one Republican congressman voted to reelect the Wisconsin congressman to be the Speaker of the House.

After the failure to bring the health care bill to the floor on March 24, rumors swirled that the party might dump Ryan as Speaker. Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) quickly shot down the speculation, telling reporters, "I don't think there's another member of our conference who wants that job."

The reason was acknowledged last week by Office of Management and Budget Director and former congressman Mick Mulvaney, who told Sinclair Broadcast Group that "the House is broken." The fight over repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act exposed that fact, he said. "The White House can't fix that. The rift in the House, that goes very deep."

Senior policy adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center and veteran Capitol Hill staffer Steve Bell explained that while the dynamics in the White House have changed, the problems Speaker Ryan has within his own caucus are longstanding. They go back before Ryan ascended to the leadership position in 2015 in the wake of a brutal civil war among House Republicans that ultimately led former Speaker John Boehner to retire.

"The arithmetic hasn't changed" from the time Boehner was speaker, Bell said, adding, "I think it's going to be very difficult with major bills to unify that conference."

On the campaign trail, Trump regularly promised supporters that repealing Obamacare would be his top priority upon taking office. Like many other policy analysts, Bell argued that pushing healthcare first was a mistake.

"That healthcare fight has, at least for now, made the splintering inside of the Republican House Caucus much more pronounced and obvious," he explained. "Because it's not just moderates versus the Freedom Caucus ... but you also have a fair amount of traditional conservatives who are both deficit hawks and defense hawks, and they find themselves almost as a third party within a party."

In recent days, Speaker Ryan has told reporters that he shares "the president's frustration" both with efforts of the conservative and moderate wings of the party to block the health care vote, and the fact that the Republican-controlled Congress and White House have not yet been able to claim any major legislative victories.

Members of the Republican conference also share that disappointment in the pace of passing legislation, which Congressman Scott Perry (R-Penn.) noted "always has been" a slow and frustrating process. "It's not lost on the president, it's not lost on any American," he added.

As far as Paul Ryan's role in advancing future legislation through the House, Perry only hopes that next time the speaker will "get everybody's involvement, inclusion early on." Getting early participation "avoids these impasses at the end," he said, describing the current friction over the health care bill.

Former House Speaker and current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to comment on how the fractures in the GOP might impact future legislation. But she told Sinclair Broadcast Group that the Republican's attempt to push a health care vote on the seventh anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act "was a sign of disarray."

"You bring up the bill when you have the votes, when you have built consensus in your party, when you have listened to outside people," she explained. "They did it not out of science, but out of spite. And that really was a sign of their disarray."

It has been reported that the House leadership is close to the 216 votes needed to pass the new, amended version of the GOP health care bill by Thursday. On Friday the House will begin a one week recess until May 16.

Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) acknowledged the difficulties his party is having, describing them as the "growing pains" of becoming a governing party.

Republicans, he said, are "having to figure out how to work with a White House where have an ally, not an adversary. Some folks maybe still are carrying forward that adversarial type of relationship we had with the prior administration."

Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland also admitted that Paul Ryan has "a tough job," saying that the speaker's predicament is best be described as between "a rock and a hard place."

On the one hand, as Republicans work to scale back the Affordable Care Act, the law is gaining popularity. While the latest GOP health bill has not yet been scored by the Congressional Budget Office, the previous iteration, the American Health Care Act, was expected to result in 24 million Americans losing health insurance over the next ten years.

In other words, if the speaker succeeds, Republicans "will be blamed for people losing their insurance," Cummings said. "On the other hand, [Ryan] is trying to give Trump some victories, because if Trump gets branded as a person who can't get anything done, a lot of the public will paint the Republican Party, not just Trump, as aiders and abettors."

Trump does have one option in the event Speaker Ryan is unable to muscle House Republicans in line. He could go to the Democrats for support.

"I think the speaker's gravest fear is that the president at some point says, 'I can't get anything done by working with Republicans only, I'm going to call in [Senate Democratic leaders] Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin and [House Democrats] Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer,'" Bell noted. "Because the president wants to get things done."

Early in Trump's presidency, Democrats indicated their willingness to work with him on issues like infrastructure spending and even a bipartisan tax plan.

"You're not dealing with a typical Republican," Bell noted, but a "non-ideological businessman who wants to make a deal."

Trump's background in making business deals could be an advantage in reaching across the aisle to Democrats if the go-it-alone approach with Republicans falls through.

Rep. Reed noted that Trump came into office with low popularity, but he is now "earning political capital" by building relationships with members on Capitol Hill. In the first three months, Trump has met with Republicans and Democrats on the Hill and brought them to the White House for discussions.

"I think that is a huge business skill that the prior administration never had, never engaged in," Reed continued. "And from my perspective, it will help President Trump earn that political capital that's necessary to get things done.

Ultimately, if the fractions in the Republican Party drive Trump to build bridges with Democrats, it could be a great opportunity for a return to good governance and bipartisanship. That would require Trump and Ryan to "ignore" the far right of their party and encourage Democrats to do the same with the far left, Bell suggested.

"I think sooner or later that's where the president will go," he said. "The sooner the better."

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