Balance of Power: Trump Pleads for Unity Under Bannon’s Shadow
By Kathleen Hunter
October 17, 2017, 8:15 PM GMT+10
Trump, McConnell Talk Taxes
After all of Donald Trump’s efforts to browbeat lawmakers, it’s ousted White House strategist Steve Bannon that Republican senators — and the U.S. president himself — actually fear.
That was the signal Trump sent yesterday with an impromptu Rose Garden appearance alongside Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in which the president urged an end to Republican infighting. Bannon responded by doubling his efforts to purge the Senate of McConnell supporters.
The bid by Trump and McConnell to smooth over past tensions demonstrates the depth of Republicans’ fear that their promised tax overhaul will follow the attempted repeal of Obamacare onto the ash heap, leaving the party without a substantive legislative accomplishment and threatening House and Senate seats in next year's midterm elections.
A political action committee allied to Bannon yesterday endorsed anti-establishment candidates in Arizona and Wisconsin. A Bannon-backed upstart beat McConnell and Trump’s preferred candidate in last month’s Alabama primary runoff.
McConnell’s got reason to be concerned about the schism given the events of 2010, when establishment candidates lost to Tea Party-backed challengers only to fall to Democrats in the general election.
As McConnell reminded Republicans yesterday, “The goal here is to win elections.’’
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