The budget deal signed into law by President Trump on Friday marks his administration’s first major bipartisan legislative agreement with the Democratic House, a deal crafted by the unlikely duo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.
The agreement also marks a visible shift in the relationship between Senate Republicans and the White House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Pelosi agreed early on that they wanted a deal. But having been burned in the past by the president’s sudden shifts, McConnell left the negotiating to her and the White House. He understood that even if he and Pelosi wrote a deal, it would be meaningless without the president’s political approval.
Without an agreement, funding would remain at lower levels, leaving defense spending significantly below what many GOP senators wanted. Ringing in their ears was a late-2018 warning from then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that there was a spike in training-related military deaths, which outpaced combat deaths, according to a GOP senator.
“We purposely didn’t send it to the president,” Perdue said, “because the president was saying the same thing we were saying, ‘Hey I want a budget deal, you guys get off your backsides and get a budget deal.’” From that day on, Pelosi and Mnuchin put “blinders” on to focus on crafting a compromise, as one observer put it. He was “operational, never political,” the person said.
Negotiations intensified in the coming weeks, with Pelosi and Mnuchin speaking by phone at least every day but often several times per day.
SpeakerPelosi We in California are coming for you in 2020! We will start our new progressive-led govt. without you leading the house!
Our entire government is traitorous to the people. They are all sellouts.
How bad can it get?