Agenda Dilemma: USMCA or Impeachment?

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As 2019 comes to a close, Congress has limited time to finish many items on its lengthy agenda. For months, House Democrats and the White House have been deadlocked in their discussions to resolve policy disagreements over the USMCA, the major trade deal struck by the Trump administration with Mexico and Canada to revise NAFTA. However, as impeachment has become the central agenda item in the House, the goal of passing the USMCA by Christmas seems to be falling short.

Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met last week to move past the impasse, and while significant progress made, no agreement was finalized. Many moderate Democrats elected in 2018 in Trump districts are keen on passing to USMCA to show a tangible bipartisan issue that they have helped resolve to their voters.

Nevertheless, the nation and Congress’s focus has shifted from trade policy to the landmark impeachment hearings taking place in the House Intelligence Committee. Many progressive Democrats buoyed by their voters’ anger towards President Trump have prioritized impeaching President Trump. President Trump has pointed out the lack of policymaking on important issues such as trade and drug prices due to the impeachment inquiry.

The House’s end of year agenda will be determined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she balances the wishes of varying perspectives within the Democratic Caucus. While difficult, it is entirely possible that Speaker Pelosi accomplishes both passing a revised USMCA and voting on articles of impeachment by year’s end. Speaker Pelosi has incredible political instincts, and Americans should not underestimate her abilities to accomplish the House’s most pressing issues.

Ukraine Whistleblower Report Roils Washington

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Congress and the White House were thrust into the national spotlight after reporting revealed that a whistleblower report had brought to light serious and troubling allegations about conversations between President Donald Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. These allegations from a whistleblower who worked with President Trump’s national security team allege that the President Trump encouraged the Ukranian President to investigate potential Democratic opponent Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and his business dealings in that country.

These allegations, if true, would be demonstrably illegal and would constitute collusion with a foreign power using the office of president to improve Trump’s chances of reelection. These reports accelerated support in the Democratic Caucus of the House of Representatives for opening an impeachment inquiry. Many moderate Democrats such as Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) who have been wary of impeaching the impeachment were propelled to support this impeachment inquiry. Additionally, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), acknowledging this marked change in her caucus despite being hesitant prior, has endorsed an impeachment inquiry.

Many in the White House have acknowledged that this impeachment threat is the greatest threat to Trump’s presidency. The public and congressional pressure led the White House to release a rough transcript of the call and a copy of the whistleblower report. The information present on these documents are considered more serious that what was previously reported and indicate that the White House had hidden the phone call transcript by putting it under secure national security material.

Many Republicans were quick to come to the President’s defense by discrediting the whistleblower as using hearsay to support the vast majority of his or her argument. However, many were troubled by the allegations and say they support greater investigation into these pressing allegations. However, this report has raised greater scrutiny about the content of other phone calls the president has had with other world leaders such as with Saudi Arabia and Russia. As the impeachment investigations continue, it will be crucial to examine public opinion in support of impeachment and the severity of the president’s actions.

Support for Impeachment Builds Among Democrats

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Within the House Democratic Caucus, support for impeachment of President Trump has slowly been building. Fueled by the progressive base of the party, many of the more liberal members of the Democratic Caucus such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have publicly came out to support the impeachment of the President due what they view as a history of criminal activity. Their support for impeachment has been strengthened after the release of the Mueller Report which showed possible instances of obstruction of justice by President Trump in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The House Democrats have launched multiple investigations into the Trump administration, but the White House has put up multiple roadblocks in the progress of the investigations. The White House has refused to provide subpoenaed documents and has instructed important witnesses to the investigations such as former White House Counsel Don McGahn to refuse to comply with subpoenas to testify before congressional committees. Many Democratic representatives, especially on the House Judiciary Committee, have become fed up with the administration and have called for an impeachment inquiry because they believe it will give more credence about the validity of the committee’s actions in court.

However, Democratic leadership in the House, in particular House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have tried to quiet talk of impeachment. They believe that impeachment will be bad for Democrats politically because it is opposed by a majority of Americans and the political failure of the Republican Party after the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. Democrats fear that impeachment will only strengthen President Trump going into the 2020 election in the eyes of the American people because there is little chance that the Republican controlled Senate will vote to convict and evict the President from office. Speaker Pelosi has tried to walk a fine line by accusing the President of suspect and possible criminal activity but refusing to open an impeachment inquiry.

Speaker Pelosi’s position was further complicated when Special Counsel Robert Mueller unexpectedly made a public statement about his report. He reiterated his findings and said that the report did not clear President Trump of wrongdoing related to obstruction of justice. He said that he did not have the authority to indict and that it is the responsibility of Congress to make a decision based on the evidence. This statement clearly contradicted Attorney General Bill Barr’s portrayal of the findings and provided further fodder for Democrats pushing for impeachment. Special Counsel Mueller’s statement has pushed many House Democrats including those in swing districts like Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) to support impeachment of the President. As the pressure builds, it will up to Speaker Pelosi to make a decision on the possible impeachment of President Trump.

Bipartisan Spending Deal

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After months of Continuing Resolutions and short term spending gaps, Congress finally agreed on a bipartisan deal to fund the government for fiscal year 2017. Republican and Democratic leadership in Congress agreed on spending levels for defense and domestic spending that was hundreds of billions over the levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act of 2011. Many defense hawks in the Republican Party believed that the defense sequester had negatively impacted the readiness of the US military and pushed for large increases in defense spending over the previous caps. Democrats, however, insisted on spending parity and pushed for a similar increase for domestic social programs. Both parties came to agreement on the caps and over the past months have been engaged in negotiation on what the money will be spent on and what other pieces of legislation should be included in the omnibus bill.

After a series of tense negotiations, the parties failed to reach an agreement on a stabilization passage for Obamacare and a resolution for DACA recipients. President Donald Trump had rejected an offer by Democrats for $25 billion of border wall money in exchange for a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young illegal immigrants. Other points of tension in the spending debate is whether money should be provided to support the Gateway project to create a tunnel between New York City and New Jersey as well as provisions regarding funding for Planned Parenthood and abortion. Some important funding provisions in the bill are billions in funding for infrastructure and money to help combat the opioid crisis.

The funding bill was vehemently opposed by fiscal conservatives such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) as well as prominent conservative media personalities Fox News Anchor Tucker Carlson and author Ann Coulter. Many conservatives believe that this bill is an example of overspending in Washington when there already is a debt crisis. Many have cemented the Republican party’s departure from policies of fiscal restraint and austerity under the Obama administration. However, the omnibus bill passed both houses of Congress with comfortable bipartisan majorities. While it was widely believed that President Trump would sign the bill, the president released a tweet criticized the bill and pondered whether he should veto it. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis called the president urging him to sign the bill in order to bolster the military. In the bill signing ceremony, the president listed his grievances will the omnibus and blasted Congress for irresponsible spending and the GOP for not pursing conservative policies. While this fiscal year was just resolved, the next budget and spending deal is needed to be made in the near future.

State of the Union 2018

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Last week, president Trump delivered his first State of the Union address, outlining his goals and policy proposals for the year to the American people. Trump continued to stress the themes such as illegal immigration and trade that he campaigned on in in 2016 that helped him get elected. However, this time the President included broad overtures to work with Democrats on a number of issues such as infrastructure and resolving the DACA issue. The President outlined his immigration proposal which includes a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought to the country by their parents as children, eliminating the Diversity Visa Lottery, ending chain migration, and increasing border security including funding for a border wall. However, many Democrats have pushed back on this proposal saying that these reforms are ill-informed changes. Finally, the President went over his accomplishments in 2017 including the tax reform bill and changes to the Veterans Affairs administration.

The State of the Union highlighted the divisiveness in Congress. After every few sentences, President Trump got a standing ovation from Republican members of Congress while Democrats on the other side of the room remained silent seated. The President included many of his guests in his speech to provide emotional and personal support to his policy proposals. For example when talking about North Korea, the President integrated a North Korean defector and the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American who died days after being released from North Korea. When talking about supporting veterans, Trump mentioned a boy who placed flags at veterans’ graves. Even though he made bipartisan overtures, many comments in his speech were divisive and partisan. President Trump talked harshly about criminal illegal immigrants and called for everyone to rise during the national anthem. Ultimately, the speech was very well received with around 75% of viewers approving of the speech in post viewing polls.

President Pence?

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After a tumultuous week for the Trump administration, many have been wondering if there will be a President Pence by the end of the year. Last week, day after day a new report came out that was damaging to the Trump administration. The news began when President Trump fired the FBI director James Comey who was investigating collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. To make the optics worse, the next day the president met with the Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak and Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval office.

A report came out that during this meeting with Trump and the Russians, Trump told classified information discovered by an Israeli spy about ISIS’s plans to take down a commercial airliner. This carelessness angered many people within the Intelligence community as well as many in Congress. The biggest story released was that Trump asked James Comey to not continue an investigation into former National Security Adviser Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn. Appalled Comey decided to write this information down in a contemporaneous report. These series of events led Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein who has jurisdiction over the Russia investigation due to the recusal of Jeff Sessions to appoint a special counsel to take charge of this investigation going forward. Also released this week in the news were reports that Trump told the Russians in the Oval Office that firing Comey took pressure of him in the Russian investigation and another report that the Russia investigation has brought in at least one person very high up in the administration.

All of these events along with speculation that Donald Trump obstructed justice in the Russia investigation have brought many people to believe that there is a good chance that Donald Trump could be impeached. Many people have though what would happen if Vice President Pence took over. Overall, what seemed as impossible a month ago now is somewhat plausible.