Impeachment Focus Risks Crowding Out Agenda for Trump, Democrats
Impeachment Focus Risks Crowding Out Agenda for Trump, Democrats
(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s launching of a impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump risks crowding out the legislative agendas of both the White House and Democrats on key items such as a trade pact with Canada and Mexico known as USMCA, drug prices and avoiding a government shutdown.
Impeachment risks shutting down progress on those fronts sooner, even though no House floor vote to endorse their work is planned in the wake of Pelosi’s announcement and no timeline for drafting articles of impeachment has been announced.
Relations between Trump and Pelosi were tense even before the furor over Trump urging Ukraine to help him smear a political rival, Joe Biden. Yet lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate had served themselves a full plate of issues to deal with before the 2020 election campaign takes over.
The view from the White House was grim. Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, said the impeachment inquiry “destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country.” And Trump lashed out at Pelosi Wednesday saying “as far as I’m concerned, she’s no longer the speaker of the House.”
The impeachment drive centers on the same six committees that already have been looking into Trump’s actions in office and business dealings.
“What changes is the tempo and the focus,” said Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat.
The sprawling House investigations have triggered subpoenas and court cases that could take months to resolve. Pelosi now is being urged by some Democrats to narrow the focus to Trump’s interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the heart of the current impeachment proceeding. On Wednesday night, NBC News reported that 218 House members -- a majority of the chamber -- supported some sort of impeachment inquiry.
A report from a whistle-blower in the intelligence community about the Trump administration’s actions that was available to some members of Congress Wednesday has since been declassified and is expected to be released Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss information that hasn’t yet been publicly released.
Amid the turmoil and rancor, Democrats still made statements giving cheery assessments of the prospects for making deals to pass legislation or continue negotiations with Republicans and the White House.
Pelosi’s approach since Trump took office has been to let House committees pursue investigations of the president while seeking legislative compromises with him on top Democratic priorities including drug pricing and gun control, as well as must-pass items like annual spending bills. Approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal is a high priority for Trump.
Whether his anger subsidies to allow the legislative work to continue remains an open question. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the president’s closest confidantes in Congress, rejected the White House position that impeachment would grind the legislative agenda to a halt.
“I told the president this morning, that is a cop-out, you still got to be president,” Graham told reporters.
Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, echoed Graham’s optimism that deals can be struck even in the middle of an investigation of the president.
“Richard Nixon signed a huge infrastructure package when he was under an impeachment inquiry,” he said.
Outreach
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said presidential aides reached out to him Tuesday night to discuss gun legislation.
“At the same time that Trump is trying to claim that we’re walking away from the legislative process on guns, his team is pulling us back in,” Murphy said.
The big test will be in the coming weeks as White House officials and House Democrats negotiate changes needed to get House approval of the trade accord known as USMCA, the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
House Democrats privately discussed it on Wednesday, and their top negotiator Richard Neal of Massachusetts said progress was being made on revisions that will get it through the House.
“We are down to a handful of differences,” said Neal, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “My position is the work of governance has to go on.”
His optimism was echoed by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who predicted while at an event in New York with Trump that it would come to a vote. “I don’t know whether or not that they’re going to have time to do any deals,” the president remarked, referring to the Democrats.
Pelosi said in an interview Wednesday that the chances of working with Trump on drug pricing and gun legislation are still alive despite the impeachment inquiry.
“I don’t think that erases his concerns for the welfare of America’s working families and their need for lower drug prices,“ she said. Asked about White House statement that she had destroyed the chances of legislation, she laughed.
“I hadn’t seen that. That’s not what he told me,” she said, adding that she discussed gun violence with Trump on Tuesday before she announced plans for an official impeachment inquiry.
But veteran Republicans including Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama warned that the impeachment inquiry would exacerbate the political polarization in Washington and could imperil matters like the USMCA and annual spending bills.
“I was here when the House impeached Clinton and I don’t know what the interval was, but once it was sent over that became the order of the day until we moved off,” Shelby said, referring to the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, who was acquitted after a Senate trial.
Drug Prices
Grassley said in a statement, “If Democrats use impeachment proceedings as a basis to not act on policy that will directly benefit Americans like the USMCA or lowering prescription drug prices, that would prove they’re more interested in politics and opposing the president at all costs than serving the American people.”
Pelosi announced her proposal to cut prescription drug prices last week after months of talks with the White House. While congressional Republicans immediately branded it as “socialism,” Trump tweeted that he welcomed its release and looked forward to striking a bipartisan agreement.
Some Democrats also are expressing concern that the move toward impeachment will distract Congress.
“At the end of the day we are not going to be able to concentrate on the work at hand” Democratic Representative Jeff Van Drew, who represents a swing district in New Jersey, said. “Is the president going to want to work with a body which is impeaching him?”
The other big test for the White House-Congress relationship will be negotiations on details of the $1.3 trillion in government spending for the 2020 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Congress this week will send Trump a stopgap keeping the government open through Nov. 21 while the budget is worked out.
Completing the spending bills without repeat of the 35 day government shut down earlier this year will likely require Trump compromising on some aspect of the funding for his border wall.
Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat and co-leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said that amid a House impeachment inquiry, Trump might be motivated to strike deals to salvage his re-election campaign.
“I would argue all the more that the president is going to want to show something other than racist rants and a non-existent wall to run on for re-election so he’s going to have to try to work with us,” he said.
--With assistance from Alexander Ruoff, Daniel Flatley and Billy House.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, John Harney
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