Posted on 03/31/2017 1:52:57 PM PDT by VitacoreVision
Fox News host Sean Hannity sided with the Freedom Caucus on Thursday in its feud with President Trump, saying he didn’t think the conservative lawmakers were at fault for last week's failure of the GOP healthcare bill.
“Now, in my opinion, it’s not the Freedom Caucus that's responsible for the GOP failure in this case to repeal and replace ObamaCare,” Hannity, a vocal supporter of Trump, said on his prime-time program.
“Now, this legislation was flawed from the beginning. It was created behind closed doors. Not one single member saw the bill until it was rolled out. And that made it a disaster,” he said.
After House leaders pulled the bill, Trump called members of the Freedom Caucus “friends of mine.”
But he has since attacked members of the group, which he has publicly blamed for the repeal effort's failure.
In a series of tweets, Trump threatened to back primary challenges against members and targeted three top Freedom Caucus leaders by name.
In rare criticism of the president, Hannity said that Trump's anger was “misplaced.”
“Now I don't know who's telling the White House to focus their anger on the Freedom Caucus, but I do think it's misplaced," Hannity said. "Because the Freedom Caucus, I've talked to them, they want to make a deal, and they want the win for the president and the country.”
Many Freedom Caucus members opposed the GOP bill, as did a number of centrist Republican lawmakers.
There are a few people here on FR that are lying through their teeth. The HFC is NOT never-Trump, though some did not want him to win the nomination. That is not exactly rare; many here felt the same way. However, most HFC guys did endorse Trump after the nomination, or when it became clear he would win. And none, zero, are currently saying they are "never Trump." If anyone has proof otherwise, post it. Otherwise, you are a liar.
Did the HFC vote for Ryan? Most of them probably. There is no way to actually verify (their membership list is secret). But so did everyone else! The truth is the HFC held their nose and reluctantly voted for Ryan, as they did not want to get into a big speaker fight right before Trump was sworn in. Though I loathe Ryan, I would probably have done the same thing. There were serious discussions behind the scenes of doing it anyway, but they held their noses and voted after Trump indicated he wanted Ryan to stay. But rest assured, Ryan's no friend of the HFC, and vice versa. Blaming the HFC for Ryan being speaker is not just disingenuous, it is a smarmy weasel Sidney Blumenthal pajama-boy type fabrication of the type we despise libs for doing.
The HFC got rid of Boehner.
More below:
Some Truths about the House Freedom Caucus
In before, "The Kochs! The Kochs!!!"
And we need to start eating and liking our crap sandwiches. Believing in campaign promises that were given up without a fight is what makes conservatives mindless ideologues. Gotta learn to be more pragmatic. The collectivist state can't be stopped, only slowed.....a little. I'm with you. not
Exactly. As I have posted in transcripts of Trump interviews from 2015 to right before he took office, Trump was more moderate on healthcare than the conservative base. He’s with the base on a lot of issues with healthcare and is with the base on many issues across the board. To go after him on one thing (even saw someone mention a 2020 primary) is ridiculous.
Rewind the tape and listen to the inauguration speech where the newly elected President Trump said that this was the time that power was to be transferred FROM Washington DC TO the people.
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How about we rewind the tape and listen to Donald Trump one week ago today stating the he was DONE with healthcare reform after it failed to come to a vote twice last week.
We rewind the tape and listen to Trump stating he was moving on to tax reform.
Wait. Did I miss something these last seven days? Did Trump move on to tax reform - solve it - then rebounded back to healthcare?
/snark
Bannon said this bill was written by the insurance lobby.....Trump needs to admit it was a bad bill ( he wont) and move on to something better
Here is another great article on the House Freedom Caucus, from Adam Brandon, the CEO of FreedomWorks:
The Washington political establishment took its first conservative scalp of the cycle with the recent defeat of Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), an outspoken member of the House Freedom Caucus.
This race is being used as a playbook to target other members of the group of about 40 fiscal and constitutional conservatives in the lower chamber, and those sharpening their knives aren’t shy about it.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus are a rare breed in Washington. They believe in free-market principles, reject cronyist policies that take advantage of taxpayers, and fight for constitutionally limited government. Occasionally, these convictions put them at odds with Republican leaders, who are often eager to cut deals with the White House and Democrats, and with Beltway insiders.
Parasitic, rent-seeking special interests — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — spent more than $3 million to smear Huelskamp and boost his primary opponent, Roger Marshall, who raised nearly $1.1 million on his own. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and others in the House Republican leadership refused to offer public support for Huelskamp or place him back on the House Agriculture Committee, from which he was unceremoniously removed for courageously standing up for conservative principles when John Boehner wielded the speaker’s gavel.
The true victims of this war are the next generation of Americans and their children, who will be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars in debt and lost opportunities.
Simply put, Huelskamp’s defeat was meant to send a message to the other members of the House Freedom Caucus. The political elite is intent on taking out the most conservative members of the House. The animosity is so palpable that Brian Walsh, a former National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) political director, recently compared members of the House Freedom Caucus to cancer.
“First, you try to ignore it; see if it gets better. Then you try to treat it with meds,” he said. “Now you just have to radiate it.”
Another insider operative suggested that his group would support “constructive conservative” primary opponents to incumbent House Freedom Caucus members. Don’t be fooled by the Orwellian catchphrase. “Constructive conservative” is just another way of this particular group saying that they will support candidates who kowtow to the status quo of more spending, more debt and more intrusions on our freedoms.
Huelskamp’s scalp is not enough for the Washington political establishment. Many of the same faux “conservative” groups that took out Huelskamp were active in primaries in Arizona and Florida on Aug. 30.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) came under attack from outside groups that were intentionally deceiving voters about his record to boost his moderate Republican challenger. One group, Right Way PAC, which describes itself with the Orwellian label “constructive conservative,” spent more than $500,000 to defeat Gosar. Happily, Gosar survived the primary challenge.
Gosar, another member of the House Freedom Caucus, has been one of the leaders of the effort in Congress to fight federal regulatory overreach. He introduced a resolution to impeach EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy for committing perjury and making false statements during congressional testimony.
Moreover, with deficits on the rise and the national debt a threat to the prosperity of the next generation of Americans, Gosar was one of the principled members of the House to vote against the fiscal 20016 omnibus bill, a betrayal of conservative principles.
This massive $1.07 trillion spending bill blew through the spending caps established in 2011 under the Budget Control Act, one of the few accomplishments of House Republicans since they regained control of the chamber. The House Freedom Caucus, Gosar included, voted against it. Unfortunately, the backroom deal cut between congressional leaders prevailed, and taxpayers were stuck with the bill.
Unfortunately, Mary Thomas, who ran in Florida’s 2nd Congressional District, lost what would have been a golden pickup opportunity for conservatives. Rep. Gwen Graham (D-Fla.) opted not to run for re-election after court-mandated redistricting made the district solidly Republican. Thomas, who was endorsed by House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), would have been an ideal replacement, picking up a seat for Republicans and adding another member to the conservative conscience of the House Republican Conference.
The same groups that helped defeat Huelskamp and were unsuccessful in their attempts to defeat Gosar spent heavily against Thomas, dropping nearly $700,000 to smear her and boost her opponent. Thomas ran a good race, but the outside influence of the Washington political establishment proved insurmountable, as she lost the primary by fewer than 1,720 votes.
Of course, the House Freedom Caucus has seen some successes this year, including the election of Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who replaced Boehner, and the renomination of Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) and Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), just to name a few. But there are challenges ahead. The Washington political establishment has declared war on the House conservatives.
The true victims of this war are the next generation of Americans and their children, who will be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars in debt and lost opportunities.
Conservatives and libertarians alike must mobilize to protect and support these principled members as we close the chapter on the 2016 congressional primaries and prepare to strategize for the 2018 midterm elections.
The House Freedom Caucus is the future of our movement, and we must double down in our support of these conservatives and of the bold, principled ideas they represent.
Adam Brandon is president and CEO of FreedomWorks.
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If we want to make leftists’ heads explode, a single congressman should state that he’s going to offer an amendment to overturn Roe v Wade and ban all abortions. That will keep the Nazis in the media busy for weeks.
The Russia gambit will disappear from the media as will other fake news. It’s time to throw a strategic bomb into that nest of leftist snakes in the media and congress.
Reminiscent of "We have to pass the bill to show you what's in it!" which is frankly, what pissed me off about it.
I didn't like it one bit when the DemoKKKrats did it, and I damn' sure didn't like it when Lyin' Paul Ryan tried doing it with President Trump's blessing either.
NO DEAL! NO COMPROMISE! CLEAN REPEAL -- ANYTHING ELSE IS AN EXTENSION OF OBAMACARE!
I didn’t think you had the intellectual honesty to address that.
May your chains set lightly upon you.
I want the Freedom Caucus and President Trump to sit down and make it work.
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Just today we’ve learned that this HFC blame game was a huge nothing burger. That there are only 18 HFC members left out of the original 30 something that remain fully opposed to TrumpCare.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3539785/posts
So we need to aks ourselves. Why? Why are we wasting so much time and energy focusing on just 18 votes? Why is Trump blaming conservatives here?
When the fact is that there are PLENTY of RINO’s who would vote NO on this bill also.
And that dirty little fact is the reason why Lyin Ryan pulled the vote twice last week and he and Trump conspired to blame a couple of nobodies in the HFC.
He campaigned on repealing and replacing and saying the government would take care of people who couldn’t afford it. He even said so in an interview prior to taking office. His legislation is going to be more liberal than the conservative base would like.
That said, I think the bill could have led to problems for Trump. I think they can do much better.
Ryancare was never going to happen. Just like Pelosi, Ryan wouldn’t allow, for the most part, anyone to see what was in it.
Right—the government takes care of people who can’t afford it via Medicaid, and nobody has suggested eliminating Medicaid.
He had a whole list of free market reforms that he ticked off too.
I didn’t think you had the intellectual honesty to address that.
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Oh, you were serious? You wanted me to address some campaign speech he made at the inauguration that has nothing to do with the topic at hand?
I get the tricks and gimmicks of people like you. You lose the argument. You then throw in some off the wall remark then snark at others when they fail to take your bait to switch the argument.
Can I get those chains in a 42 Regular???
The Freedom Caucus was formed in 2015 and has 33 members in the House.
Your knock on them is they “don’t have one accomplishment”??? They were integral in getting rid of Boehner. That is one thing.
Besides that, I wonder how much easier it would be for them if there were people on supposedly “conservative” forums with names like “conservative98” who actually STOOD FOR CONSERVATISM!!!!
Maybe if in the one place where you would think conservatives would have conservative’s backs they actually supported conservative principals, there would be more than 33 members of the conservative caucus....???
And again, your knock on them is that they haven’t done enough yet....Give me a break.
It ain’t over.
Boehner was bad. P. Ryan is worse.
In the primary Trump talked about repeal and replace.
Putting savings accounts and tax deductions in place would be a replacement.
It would leave Medicaid in place. I don’t think people who are intelligent and understand Medicaid are going to ask for it all to be cut.
We have indigent people and we need to make sure they have access to health care. What we want to do is put those people to work, get them on a policy and get them off of Medicaid.
I have been saying I’d like to see this group reduced over the years so that by 2020, the figure would be far less than the tens of millions that are on it today.
IMO, this is as far as Conservatism can go. We can’t simply refuse health care to 40 million people. It’s not humane and it’s not realistic.
Take actions to reduce that number to 20 million, 10 million, and down to 5 million or less in time. There is also the option to have these people take out a policy that at least covers a percentage of their health care.
Even if a guy only insures himself for 25 to 75% of his costs, it reduces the government’s need to cover 100%.
The goal is to allow the market place to work, and to cut government spending. These options would be a great way to get at least most of the way there.
That is a good solid Conservative approach, and something Trump could have signed on to easily IMO.
Instead Ryan pawned off his debacle and Trump bought off on it. If Paul’s plan had been submitted again (passed in 2015 and made it to Obama’s desk in January of 2016), Trump would have signed off on that too.
The GOPe did exactly what I said they would.
They couldn’t defeat Trump, so they decided to pre-empt his policy and only push Leftist pap instead of his goals.
Trump didn’t catch on. That’s on him at this point. I don’t support Ryancare, and I don’t support Trump supporting it.
I am willing to wait to see that shows up on his desk, but trashing FC members and backing this Obamacare lite travesty, is dead wrong.
I have supported Trump on everything else so far.
He really needs to get his head screwed on straight on this issue.
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