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In today’s edition … The least productive Congress in at least 50 years … What we’re watching: Senate negotiations on the border … Government shutdown in January looms as Congress looks to head home … but first …
The campaign
Why Bob Vander Plaats thinks some evangelicals can’t quit Trump
Six questions for … Bob Vander Plaats: The longtime Iowa evangelical leader endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last month in an uphill effort to prevent former president Donald Trump from winning the Iowa caucuses in January.
We sat down with Vander Plaats on Thursday to discuss what he makes of the recent NBC News-Des Moines Register-Mediacom Iowa poll, why evangelical voters are sticking with Trump and his concerns about giving Trump a second term. This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The Early: You endorsed DeSantis even though he was polling well behind Trump in state and national polls. Why did you do that?
Vander Plaats: I’ve been a friend to Trump for 12 years. I voted for him twice. I believe my endorsement of Governor DeSantis is not against Donald Trump. But I do believe the former president presents the highest hurdle for us to win in 2024.
The Early: The Iowa poll that came out Monday found 51 percent of likely caucus-goers named Trump their first choice, up from 43 percent in October. Just 19 percent named DeSantis as their first choice, up from 16 percent in October. What do you make of those numbers?
Vander Plaats: I don’t believe them, and there’s a reason I don’t believe them — because it does not match up at all to what I’m hearing on the ground. I’m a big fan of [pollster] Ann Selzer, but she’s been wrong before. In the 2010 gubernatorial primary, she was off by 21 points the Sunday before the Tuesday governor’s primary, and primaries are way easier to poll than caucuses. [Ed.: Terry Branstad defeated Vander Plaats in the primary 50 percent to 41 percent after Selzer found Branstad leading 57 percent to 29 percent.] She was off in the 2016 caucus. She had Trump winning by five. [Sen. Ted] Cruz [R-Tex.] won by four. [Ed.: Cruz won the 2016 caucuses by about 3.3 points.]
Do I think the former president is leading the Iowa caucuses right now? I believe he is. But I believe [Trump’s support is] much closer to low 40s [while DeSantis is in the] mid-20s. I don’t think he’s got a 30-point lead. And I think there’s plenty of time to make that up.
The Early: The poll also found 51 percent of likely caucus-goers who describe themselves as evangelicals support Trump. Do you see a divide between evangelical leaders like yourself and evangelical voters when it comes to Trump?
Vander Plaats: No, I really don’t know if I do. There’s some evangelicals [who] believe Trump of 2016 is going to be Trump of 2024. And I get that. I understand where they’d be like, “I’d rather have Trump than Joe Biden. I want to bring Trump back because Trump was good.” I’m not discounting that stuff at all. I'm just saying I'm looking at electability and who's going to move us forward.
There may be a disconnect there. I don't see a huge disconnect otherwise.
The Early: How do you think the Trump of 2024 would be different from the Trump of 2016?
Vander Plaats: First of all, day one, you’re really a lame duck, because you’re in your second term.
And who’s going to make up his team? I’m very concerned about that. A lot of his team members have been under litigation, and it’s been expensive for them. And if that’s the track record — “I’m going to go serve but then I’m going to get sued” — and there's been no real propensity to say, “I've got [former Trump lawyer Rudy] Giuliani's back,” or “I've got [former White House chief of staff Mark] Meadows’s back” or “I've got [former Trump lawyer] Jenna Ellis’s back. It's awfully hard now to recruit people to come in.
The Early: DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida. He has said he would support a 15-week national ban as president. Trump has not committed to doing so. Why do you think so many evangelical voters are supporting Trump over DeSantis?
Vander Plaats: Trump is well known — 100 percent name ID. And he did things that they remember. And so you’re not going to leave him until you're sold on somebody. There’s also part of the evangelical community — which I fully understand — they want a disrupter. They just want a disrupter: “This is wrong, and we need a disrupter just to shake it up.” And I think they view Trump being a champion in that.
The Early: You supported Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008 and former senator Rick Santorum in 2012 and Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016. All of them went on to win the caucuses. What do you think it says if Trump wins this year?
Vander Plaats: DeSantis either needs to win the Iowa caucuses or he needs to be knocking on the door of Donald Trump — meaning he needs to be a very close second. I don’t know what that percentage is, but he needs to be a close second. I’d say for sure within 10 [points]. And if not, I’m not sure who stops [Trump]. I like Nikki Haley but she has a very limited lane. She has the modern-day Mitt Romney lane. And the modern-day Mitt Romney lane isn't near as big as what the Mitt Romney lane was back in 2008 or 2012.
On the Hill
This is the least productive Congress in 50 years
Congress is about to wrap its least productive legislative year since at least 1973.
Just 22 bills have been signed into law this year, according to GovTrack. (When the annual defense policy bill, which Congress passed this week, is signed by the president, the total number will be 23. That number can also rise slightly with the Senate’s end-of-year business, including potentially a short-term reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.)
It’s a stark contrast to last year, when 281 bills were signed into law, according to the Center for Effective Lawmaking, a project by University of Virginia professor Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman with Vanderbilt University. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed 485 bills into law.
Before this year, the record low was when 72 bills became law in 2013 — more than three times the number of bills this year.
Congress has not been this unproductive in at least half a century.
Lawmakers’ accomplishments this year include two short-term spending bills to keep the government open, the naming of a Veterans Affairs Clinic in New Mexico and the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps Commemorative Coin Act. The most significant piece of legislation that Congress passed was to lift the debt limit, which also set spending levels for the 2024 fiscal year.
But now — three months into the current fiscal year which is operating on a short-term spending bill (one of the 22 bills) — Congress can’t agree to follow those spending levels after House Republicans immediately rejected them.
The Senate is staying in town at least until Monday as Senate and White House negotiators continue to work on a deal on border policy as part of a $110 billion supplemental funding bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the border.
But at least one House member is not impressed.
“Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor … come explain to me one meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, ‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats,'” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) said last month.
Correction: A previous version of this item used an incorrect name for the Center for Effective Lawmaking. The item has been corrected.
What we're watching
On the Hill
Senate negotiations on the border: We’re watching to see if there is any movement on the bipartisan Senate and White House negotiations on the border. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) refused to send the Senate home to give them “time to work through the weekend in an effort to reach a framework agreement.”
He will hold a vote on the national security supplemental next week even if there’s no agreement. Another vote on the Democratic proposal for Israel, Ukraine, border and Taiwan money will fail, just like it already did once last week. The point is to keep pressure on Republicans to reach a deal. Republicans are annoyed and frustrated at the tactics, which they say won’t move the ball forward.
On the Hill
Government shutdown in January looms as Congress looks to head home
Tick tock: “With a federal financing deadline looming in the new year, time is running out yet again for Congress to avert a government shutdown as House Republicans attempt to renegotiate a months-old financing deal before leaving Washington for the holidays,” our colleague Jacob Bogage reports.
- “Money for crucial government programs — including some veterans’ assistance and food and drug safety services — expires on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. But lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have not yet agreed on how to pass full-year spending bills or more temporary funding. Without action by the first deadline, a partial government shutdown would begin when funding lapses.”
- “Lawmakers and President Biden in the spring reached a deal on how much the federal government would spend in the 2024 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1: $1.59 trillion. That agreement, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, or FRA, included an additional $69 billion in side agreements that were not written into the legislation to soften the blow of the spending caps. But House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), who was not part of that negotiation, said this week they would not abide by the agreement, attempting to jettison the side deal in budget negotiations.”
- “Lawmakers have less time than it appears to arrive at a solution. The House adjourned Thursday and will not return to business until Jan. 9 — leaving just eight legislative days after this week to pass trillions of dollars of spending through both chambers.”
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