Shapiro Still Has High Hopes Trump and Schumer Can Be Deal-Makers, He Says
CTA President Gary Shapiro still has the high hopes he expressed the day after the November elections (see 1611090038) that President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., can be deal-makers on issues such as infrastructure spending, tax policy and high-skilled immigration overhaul, Shapiro emailed us Thursday.
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Relations between Trump and Schumer are off to a rocky start. Schumer vehemently opposed Trump’s immigration executive order and voted against the nomination of Elaine Chao to become transportation secretary. Trump at his White House news conference Thursday blamed Schumer for orchestrating Democrats’ delays in confirming several of his cabinet appointees. “You look at Schumer and the mess that he’s got over there and they have nothing going,” Trump said of Senate Democrats.
Nevertheless, “it's only four weeks” into the Trump administration -- "1/48 of the term" -- and "things will change” for the better, Shapiro said. Shapiro didn't expect Trump to “cut deals right away, not when he hasn’t even filled one percent of his appointments,” he said. “But he has managed to get almost a complete Cabinet slate, nominated a credible Supreme Court nominee, slowed down or reversed several last-minute Obama Administration rules and held successful personal meetings with three of our top international allies.”
There no doubt “have been mistakes” in Trump’s first month in office, including the “sloppy” immigration order, the resignation of Michael Flynn as national security adviser and Trump’s “unnecessary rifts with Mexico and Australia,” Shapiro said. “But this has by most measures been a productive first month. Remember, both President [George W.] Bush and President [Barack] Obama got off to rough starts at the beginning of their presidencies.”
Shapiro concedes he was “more optimistic” in November that Schumer “would want to deal with the administration,” he said. “But I understand he’s under extreme pressure from the far-left ‘resist’ movement to oppose Trump at every turn.” His vote against Chao was particularly “disheartening as, having been a competent secretary of two agencies, she was qualified by every account,” Shapiro said. “Plus, she is the Majority Leader’s wife!” he said of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Chao previously was secretary of labor and deputy secretary of transportation.
The Democrats “who boycott votes, slow down confirmations, encourage the disruption of Republican town hall meetings and refuse to even meet with Republicans or the administration are not doing their job and risk turning moderates into Republican voters,” Shapiro said. He said CTA supports No Labels, the political advocacy group of Democrats, Republicans and independents, whose motto is, “Stop fighting, start fixing.” CTA also backs the new Problem Solvers Caucus in the House, a group of about 40 Democratic and Republican members “who are committed to work together to solve major national problems,” Shapiro said.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) and ex-Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., are the national co-chairs of No Labels. They co-wrote an opinion piece in Friday's Los Angeles Times that carried the headline: "Democrats are copying Republican obstruction tactics." The "anger and alienation that began under President George W. Bush and worsened under President Obama has reached a fever pitch early in the Trump administration, and has us both asking -- though from different parties -- the same question: How can this possibly end well for the U.S.?" Huntsman and Lieberman wrote.