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Jul 25th 2017 11:31PM

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) - A plan to repeal and replace Obamacare that Senate Republicans have been working on for months failed to get the 60 votes needed for approval Tuesday night.

The vote was 43 in favor and 57 against. Nine Republicans voted against the measure.

The plan would have made deep cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, and reduced Obamacare subsidies to lower-income people to help them defray the cost of health insurance.

It was the first of many expected votes this week on repealing or replacing elements of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Protests for and against Obamacare

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Tea Party Patriots supporters hold signs protesting the Affordable Care Act in front of the Supreme Court as the court hears arguments on the health care reform bill on Tuesday, March 27, 2012.

(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Affordable Care Act supporters wave signs outside the Supreme Court after the court upheld court's Obamacare on Thursday, June 25, 2015.

(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

A man holds signs during a protest on the second day of oral arguments for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on March 27, 2012 in Washington, DC. Today is the second of three days the high court has set aside to hear six hours of arguments over the constitutionality President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Sister Caroline attends a rally with other supporters of religious freedom to praise the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby, contraception coverage requirement case on June 30, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby, which operates a chain of arts-and-craft stores, challenged the provision and the high court ruled 5-4 that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

An Obamacare supporter counter protests a Tea Party rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in the morning hours of March 27, 2012 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court continued to hear oral arguments on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Affordable Care Act supporters hold up signs outside the Supreme Court as they wait for the court's decision on Obamacare on Thursday, June 25, 2015.

(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Ron Kirby holds a sign while marching in protest of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26, 2012 in Washington, DC. Today the high court, which has set aside six hours over three days, will hear arguments over the constitutionality President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

A protester waves his bible in the air as he overpowered by cheers from supporters of the Affordable Care Act as they celebrate the opinion for health care outside of the Supreme Court in Washington,Thursday June 25, 2015. The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide tax subsidies under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans.

(Photo By Al Drago/CQ Roll Call)

Nuns, who are opposed to the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, and other supporters rally outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, March 23, 2016. On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Zubik v. Burwell, a consolidated case brought by religious groups challenging a process for opting out of the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate.

(Drew Angerer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Supporters of contraception rally before Zubik v. Burwell, an appeal brought by Christian groups demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under the Affordable Care Act, is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington March 23, 2016.

(REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

Protestors hold placards challenging 'Obamacare' outside of the US Supreme Court on March 4, 2015 in Washington, DC. The US Supreme Court heard a second challenge to US President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. The US Supreme Court faces a momentous case Wednesday on the sweeping health insurance reform law that President Barack Obama wants to leave as part of his legacy. The question before the court is whether the seven million people or more who subscribed via the government's website can obtain tax subsidies that make the coverage affordable. A ruling is expected in June.

(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Linda Door (L) protests against President Obama's health care plan in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on March 26, 2012 in Washington, DC. Today the high court, which has set aside six hours over three days, will hear arguments over the constitutionality President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act celebrate after the Supreme Court up held the law in the 6-3 vote at the Supreme Court in Washington June 25, 2015. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide availability of tax subsidies that are crucial to the implementation of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, handing a major victory to the president.

(REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)

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Senate Republican plan to repeal, replace Obamacare fails - AOL

President Donald Trump angrily lashed out at unnamed Republican lawmakers on Sunday, saying they should protect him as repayment for his 2016 election coattails.

It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President, Trump tweeted at 4:14 p.m., EDT. That was just over an hour after he arrived back at the White House after spending around four hours at Trump National Golf Club in nearby Sterling, Virginia.

The eyebrow-raising tweet comes amid the ongoing scandal and multiple federal and congressional probes of Russias 2016 election meddling, including whether Trumps campaign and the Kremlin colluded to undermine Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Republican lawmakers are increasingly voicing their views that the president should stop tweeting about the matter, especially during theJustice Department investigation being led by former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller.

By launching a public attack on his fellow Republicans, Trump could open the door to an all-out revolt among some members of his own party. Whilesome Democrats talk about possible impeachment proceedings over the Russia allegations, legal and political experts agree that is unlikely as long as the president has the support of Republican leaders and rank-and-file members, who control both the House and Senate.

But if Trump loses his own party mates and Mueller finds damning evidence, experts of all political stripes say the presidentcould find himself in legal and political quicksand.

Some Republicans in recent days and weeks have advised Trump to stop calling the Russia probes a collective "witch hunt." But Trump frequently uses the term, as he did in a tweet he sent minutes before he slammed fellow Republicans.

It was unclear to whom Trump was referring Sunday.

Earlier in the day, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was on CNN and sided with Trumps legal analysis which he tweeted out Saturday morning that any president possesses the power to pardon himself.

I think, in all likelihood, he does, Paul said of Trump. I think that some of this hasnt been adjudicated.

But he advised caution in handing out pardons.

I think in a political sphere, I would caution someone to think about pardoning themselves or family members, or et cetera, Paul said. In a tweet Saturday that instantly lit up the internet and cable news before making the front pages of major Sunday morning newspapers, the president opined that all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon.

It was not immediately clear why Trump chose to openly talk of pardons before any law enforcement official has even mentioned possible charges against his campaign advisers, family members, White House staff, or himself. His incoming new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, said Sunday that Trump is not thinking about pardoning anyone his first major public contradiction of his boss since accepting the job on Friday morning.

So far, there is no clear evidence of a Trump campaign-Russia collusion. His eldest son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law and senior White House adviserJared Kushner, and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort did meet in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer, who Trump Jr. was told would deliver Kremlin-supplied dirt on Clinton.

Trumpsvenomous social media post came after he spent several weeks appearing to go out of his way to publicly praise Republican senators as they try to reach consensus among themselves on the details of a measure to repeal and replace President Barack Obamas 2010 health care law.

Doing so was a major Trump campaign pledge, and he has made clear the details matter little to him; he and top aides say he would sign whatever the Senate GOP caucus can agree on.

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Trump Lashes Out at Republicans, Saying They Won't 'Protect' Him - Roll Call

Jul. 24, 2017 at 6:00 AM

Since modern polling began, no president has been as unpopular at this point in his first term as Donald Trump is today. So should Republicans worry that Trump will hurt their prospects of keeping control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections? In a word, yes if Trump remains as unpopular on Election Day 2018 as he is now.

It might seem like Republican congressional candidates should be able to escape Trumps unpopularity. Trump, after all, was the least liked major-party presidential candidate on record. Yet Republicans in 2016 won the national House vote by a percentage point and took 241 out of the chambers 435 seats for a net loss of only six seats. And even though Trump is historically unpopular as a president, he was even more unpopular as a candidate: Trumps current disapproval rating in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate is 56 percent, while 2016 general election exit polls put his unfavorable rating at 60 percent. No wonder some Republican House members might be reluctant to distance themselves from Trump, no matter how unpopular he might appear in polls.

That logic, however, misses a key distinction: Midterm elections are different from those that take place in presidential election years. And midterm elections that take place with an unpopular president in office are very different from presidential election years that have two historically unpopular candidates at the top of the major-party tickets.

Republican congressional candidates in 2016 may not have gotten much help from Trump, but they got a big boost from someone else: Hillary Clinton. Clinton, its easy to forget, was only modestly more popular than Trump. According to Gallup, Clinton had the second-worst unfavorable rating of any major-party presidential candidate in modern history, behind only Trump. In the 2016 exit polls, 55 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of Clinton.

Clintons unpopularity turned out to be a key factor in 2016 congressional races. Unsurprisingly, people who had a favorable view of Clinton primarily voted for Democrats in House races, while people with a favorable view of Trump primarily voted for Republican candidates. But among the 19 percent of voters who had an unfavorable view of both presidential candidates, House Republican candidates won by a margin of 30 percentage points. (Some voters may have cast a ballot for a Republican House candidate in the belief that a House controlled by the GOP would balance Clintons power after what most Americans thought would be a Clinton win.)

Next year, though, Clinton wont be on the ballot (although Trump continues to tweet about her). That could be a big problem for House Republican candidates, especially if Trump remains unpopular. Thats because realistically, the only way for Democrats to take back the House is to run up huge margins among voters who dont like Trump.

In part because of Clintons unpopularity, Democrats in 2016 won among voters who had an unfavorable view of Trump by only 50 percentage points. That may seem like a lot, but Democrats will need to do much better if they want to take back the House. Based on Trumps current approval rating, House Democratic candidates probably need to win Trump disapprovers by something close to a 70- or 75-point margin in 2018.

Two surveys conducted this spring by SurveyMonkey for FiveThirtyEight suggest that Democrats may get the margin they need among Trump disapprovers to take back the House. In these polls, SurveyMonkey asked voters (among other questions) whether they approved of the job Trump was doing as president and whether they planned to vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate for Congress in their district in 2018. On average, the surveys found that Democratic House candidates would win 82 percent to 7 percent (a 75-point margin) among respondents who disapproved of the job that Trump was doing. (The two surveys found very similar results.) Meanwhile, House Republican candidates won by an average of 78 points among respondents who approved of the job Trump was doing. Thats slightly worse than Republicans did among those who had a favorable view of Trump in 2016, according to the exit polls.

Overall, the SurveyMonkey polls gave Democrats a 9-point lead on the congressional ballot. Thats very close to their average 10-point edge in the FiveThirtyEight congressional ballot tracker. Its also much better than the 1-point margin Democrats lost the House by in 2016 and the 1-point lead they had in the final national congressional ballot polls before the election. And although we cant be sure of how exactly the vote share margin will translate to a seat margin in 2018, a 9- or 10-point win for the Democrats in the national House vote would put Democrats in a good position to take back the House.

The Democrats momentum shouldnt come as a big surprise. Midterms are usually more about a referendum on the president than a choice between the two parties. Since exit polls first started asking voters about their opinion of the president in 1982, those who disapprove of the presidents job performance going into a midterm election have overwhelmingly voted for the party that is not in control of the White House.

How those who disapprove of the presidents job performance have voted, by party, in midterm U.S. House elections since 1982

Excludes those who voted for third-party candidates in the midterm elections from 1982 to 2006.

Sources: Fox News, The New York Times

On average, the party out of the White House has won by 67 percentage points among those who disapprove of the presidents job performance. In the past five midterm elections, the opposition party has won that group by an average of 71 points. Thats close to the margin that the average SurveyMonkey poll has the Democrats winning by among those who disapprove of the job that Trump is doing. In other words, the SurveyMonkey poll suggests a 2018 midterm election that is in line with history.

Of course, Trump has well over a year to increase his approval rating before Election Day. And its not as though the Democrats are exactly popular: A May Gallup poll, for example, shows the Democratic Party with just a 40 percent favorable rating and a 53 percent unfavorable rating, both of which are on par with the presidents and the Republican Partys ratings. Then again, the Republican Partys low favorability ratings didnt help the Democrats hold the House in 2010 or win it back in 2014, both years when Republicans were about as unpopular as then-President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

Republicans still might not choose to distance themselves from Trump. The 2016 election taught us that the lessons of history dont always apply to modern politics. Maybe the Democratic Partys unpopularity will be a difference-maker in 2018 like Clintons unpopularity was in 2016. Maybe Democrats wont turn out to vote in 2018. Still, these are risky bets to place with a House majority on the line. Trump is more likely to be a liability than an asset in the 2018 general election. Presidents tend to get more unpopular in the lead-up to midterms, and people who dont like the president tend to vote against the presidents party.

Read the rest here:
Bad News For House Republicans: Clinton Won't Be On The Ballot In 2018 - FiveThirtyEight

By Win McNamee/Getty Images.

Executing an idiosyncratic about-face, the White House suggested Sunday that the president would be willing to accept new legislation limiting his authority to lift sanctions on Russia, following a cross-party revolt over Donald Trumps concerning reluctance to chastise Vladimir Putin for meddling in the 2016 election. Currently, the decision to lift sanctions leveled by the executive branch reside solely within the White House, and presidents from both parties have typically resisted Congress weighing in on such matters, as it curbs their ability to conduct foreign policy. The West Wing had previously resisted the sanctions bill, working behind the scenes to weaken its strictures on Trumps power.

Despite the presidents attempts to scuttle the bill, which concerns Russia, North Korea, and Iran, it is expected to pass Congress on Tuesday. As a result, sanctions will become much harder to lift, even after the circumstances that sparked them have changed. To overturn sanctions related to the Ukraine, for example, Trump would have to prove that the catalyzing conditions have been reversed. To lift sanctions over Russian cyberattacks, he would need to provide evidence that Russia had tried to reduce such transgressions. Congress would then have at least 30 days to vote on any changes he sought.

It is not just Trump who is unhappy with the bill. Europe has significant reservations, and Brussels is reportedly preparing to retaliate if Washington pushes ahead with sweeping new sanctions on Russia that hit European companies. According to a note prepared for a commission meeting on Wednesday, seen by the Financial Times, Brussels should stand ready to act within days if the U.S. measures were adopted without E.U. concerns being taken into account.

Skidding over the fact that strong, cross-party support for the bill means that a presidential veto would encounter strong resistance in Congress, newly promoted White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders framed Trumps acceptance of the widely disputed legislation as consensual. The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place, she said on ABCs This Week. The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the House and Senate, and the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary, and we support where the legislation is now.

Her explanation, already reedy, was inconveniently undercut by the president himself, who was overcome by an outbreak of Twitter-fueled petulance. As the phony Russian With Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians! he posted Sunday. Its very sad that Republicans, even some that were carries over the line on my back, do very little to protect their president.

Newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, eager to prove his worth, threw himself into the administrations undulant line of cross-communication with gusto. Speaking on CNNs State of the Union, he casually contradicted Sanders by saying that, actually, the president had not decided whether to sign the measure. Youve got to ask President Trump that, he said. Its my second or third day on the job. My guess is that hes going to make that decision shortly. Later, he added: He hasnt made the decision yet to sign that bill one way or another.

Scaramucci also addressed The Washington Posts report that the president has been exploring the possibility of pardoning himself, and his associates, in light of the ongoing, parallel investigations into Russian collusion with his campaign. (The report was neatly supplemented by Trump himself, who, in a boorish demonstration of the scope of his powers, announced via Twitter that all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon.) Im in the Oval Office with the president last week; were talking about that, Scaramucci said, this time on Fox. He brought that up. He said, but he doesn't have to be pardoned. Theres nobody around him that has to be pardoned. He was just making the statement about the power of pardons.

He rounded off his weekend by clumsily confirming the fears that are driving this bill through: that Trump is not taking the Russia threat seriously. If the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those e-mails, you would never have seen it, you would have never had any evidence of them, he quoted the president as saying, noting that, despite U.S. intelligence agencies confirming that Russia state hackers broke into Clinton-linked e-mail accounts, Trumps still not convinced that they interfered in the election. Maybe they did it, maybe they didnt do it, Scaramucci said, enigmatically.

Whether or not allegations of Russian collusion are fake news, the sanctions issue is quite real. Scaramuccis precede a week in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort are all set to be grilled by congressional investigators about their meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, which was ostensibly about sanctions, but actually took place in the hope of scoring damaging information about Hillary Clinton. (The committee will presumably be interested in whether the confluence of the two, otherwise unrelated, topics suggested a potential quid pro quo.) The question of U.S. sanctions on Russia also cropped up during Trumps second, undisclosed meeting with Putin at the G20 in Germany, where the two reportedly exchanged pleasantries before turning to the issue of adoptionsshorthand for the restrictions Moscow placed on American adoptions of Russian children in retaliation for U.S. sanctions in the Magnitsky Act. Those and other sanctions have been a sharp point of contention between the two countries for years, particularly after President Obama tightened the screws in response to Moscows annexation of Crimea and intervention in Eastern Ukraine. Before he left office, Obama also expelled 35 Russian diplomats and confiscated two Russian compounds in the U.S. as punishment for intervention in the election.

In the Trump administration, the barbed issue of Russian sanctions has taken on a strange, symbolic weight, alluding not so much to the governments willingness to inflict punishment, but its hesitancy to. This bill will be the first time that Congress, dominated by Trumps own party, have turned on him in a major matter, and can be seen as a measure of the toll Russia has had on his presidency so far. It is also the first time that Democrats and Republicans have joined together in such a public way since Trump took office. Such collaboration should be a troubling sign for a president who has demanded complete loyalty. The G.O.P. may have circled the wagons to defend Trump, but they are not so far gone that they wont curb his powers if they are forced to take sides against Putin. Even partisanship has its limits.

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Trump's Hold on the Republican Party Begins to Break - Vanity Fair

Six months after seizing complete control of the federal government, the Republican Party stands divided as ever plunged into a messy war among its factions that has escalated in recent weeks to crisis levels.

Frustrated lawmakers are increasingly sounding off at a White House awash in turmoil and struggling to accomplish its legislative goals. President Trump is scolding Republican senators over health care and even threatening electoral retribution. Congressional leaders are losing the confidence of their rank and file. And some major GOP donors are considering using their wealth to try to force out recalcitrant incumbents.

Its a lot of tribes within one party, with many agendas, trying to do what they want to do, Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) said in an interview.

The intensifying fights threaten to derail efforts to overhaul the nations tax laws and other initiatives that GOP leaders hope will put them back on track. The party remains bogged down by a months-long health-care endeavor that still lacks the support to become law, although Senate GOP leaders plan to vote on it this week.

With his priorities stalled and Trump consumed by staff changes and investigations into Russian interference in last years election, Republicans are adding fuel to a political fire that is showing no signs of burning out. The conflict also heralds a potentially messy 2018 midterm campaign with fierce intra-party clashes that could draw resources away from fending off Democrats.

Its very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President, Trump wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon, marking the latest sign of the presidents uneasy relationship with his own party.

Winning control of both chambers and the White House has done little to fill in the deep and politically damaging ideological fault lines that plagued the GOP during Barack Obamas presidency and ripped the party apart during the 2016 presidential primary. Now, Republicans have even more to lose.

In the 50 years Ive been involved, Republicans have yet to figure out how to support each other, said R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the founder of the American Spectator, a conservative magazine.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans are increasingly concerned that Trump has shown no signs of being able to calm the party. What Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) called the daily drama at the White House flared again last week when Trump shook up his communications staff and told the New York Times that he regretted picking Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general.

This week was supposed to be Made in America Week and we were talking about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Dent grumbled in a telephone interview Thursday, citing White House messaging campaigns that were overshadowed by the controversies.

[At the White House, an abrupt chain reaction: Spicer out, Scaramucci and Sanders in]

As Trump dealt with continued conflicts among his staff which culminated Friday in press secretary Sean Spicer resigning in protest after wealthy financier Anthony Scaramucci was named communications director he set out to try to resolve the Senate Republican impasse over health care.

The president had a small group of Republican senators over for dinner last Monday night to talk about the issue. But the discussion veered to other subjects, including Trumps trip to Paris and the Senates 60-vote threshold for most legislation, which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will not end. That didnt stop Trump from wondering aloud about its usefulness.

He asked the question, Why should we keep it? recalled Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who attended the dinner.

Two days later, some Republican senators left a White House lunch confused about what Trump was asking them to do on health care. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said the next day that while the president made very clear that he wants to see a bill pass, Im unclear, having heard the president and read his tweets, exactly which bill he wants to pass.

The White House says the president prefers to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. McConnell has also raised the prospect of moving to only repeal the law. Neither option has enough votes. Nevertheless, McConnell plans to hold a vote early this week and bring the push to fulfill a seven-year campaign promise to its conclusion, one way or the other.

One of the things that united our party has been the pledge to repeal Obamacare since the 2010 election cycle, said White House legislative affairs director Marc Short. So when we complete that, I think that will help to unite the party.

Trumps allies on Capitol Hill have described the dynamic between the White House and GOP lawmakers as a disconnect between Republicans who are still finding it difficult to accept that he is the leader of the party that they have long controlled.

The disconnect is between a president who was elected from outside the Washington bubble and people in Congress who are of the Washington bubble, said Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who works closely with the White House. I dont think some people in the Senate understand the mandate that Donald Trumps election represented.

Trump issued a casual threat at the Wednesday lunch against Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has not embraced McConnells health-care bill. Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesnt he? Trump said in front of a pack of reporters as Heller, sitting directly to his right, grinned through the uncomfortable moment.

Heller is up for reelection in a state that Trump lost to Hillary Clinton and where Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) was the first Republican to expanded Medicaid under the ACA. Heller later brushed the moment off as President Trump being President Trump.

But some donors say they are weighing whether to financially back primary challengers against Republican lawmakers unwilling to support Trumps aims.

Absolutely we should be thinking about that, said Frank VanderSloot, a billionaire chief executive of an Idaho nutritional-supplement company. He bemoaned the lack of courage some lawmakers have shown and wished representatives would have the guts to vote the way they said they would on the campaign trail.

[Trump threatens electoral consequences for senators who oppose health-care bill]

Its not just the gulf between Trump and Republican senators that has strained relations during the health-care debate. The way McConnell and his top deputies have handled the legislation has drawn sharp criticism from some GOP senators.

No, said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), when asked last week whether he was happy with the way leadership has navigated the talks.

As he stepped into a Senate office building elevator the same day, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) would not respond to reporter questions about how good a job McConnell has done managing the health-care push. He flashed a smile as the door closed.

McConnell has defended his strategy, saying the process has been open to Republican senators, who have discussed it in many lunches and smaller meetings. Still, when it came time to write the bill, it was only McConnell and a small group of aides who did it. There was no outreach at all to Democrats, who have been united in their opposition.

In the House, the prospect of passing a 2018 budget this summer and a spending bill with funding for the Mexican border wall that Trump has called for remain uncertain, even though Republicans have a sizeable majority in the chamber. GOP disagreements have continued to erupt during Speaker Paul D. Ryans (R-Wis.) tenure. There are also obstacles in both chambers to achieving tax reform, which is expected to be among the next significant GOP legislative undertakings.

Trump critics said the ongoing controversies over Russian interference in the 2016 election and probes into potential coordination with the presidents associates would make any improvement in relations all but impossible in the coming months, with many Republicans unsure whether Trumps presidency will survive.

The Russia stories never stop coming, said Rick Wilson, a vocal anti-Trump consultant and GOP operative. For Republicans, the stories never get better, either. There is no moment of clarity or admission.

Wilson said Republicans are also starting to doubt whether the bargain they made that they can endure Trump in order to pass X or Y can hold. After a while, nothing really works and it becomes a train wreck.

[Its an insane process: How Trump and Republicans failed on their health-care bill]

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, said Trumps battles with Republicans are unlikely to end and are entirely predictable, based on what Trumps victory signified.

His nomination and election were a hostile takeover of the vehicle of the Republican Party, Stone said. He added, When you talk to some Republicans who oppose Trump, they say they will keep opposing him but cant openly say it.

Some Republican lawmakers have been pained to talk about the president publicly, fearful of aggressively challenging their party leader but also wary of aligning too closely with some of his controversial statements or policy positions. Instead, they often attempt to focus on areas where they agree.

On foreign policy, I think he very much is involved in a direction thats far more in alignment since hes been elected with a bulk of the United States Senate than during the campaign, said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Amid the discord, there are some signs of collaboration. The Republican National Committee has worked to build ties to Trump and his family. In recent weeks, Trumps son Eric, his wife, Lara, and RNC chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, among other committee officials, met at the Trump International Hotel in Washington to discuss upcoming races and strategy.

That meeting followed a similar gathering weeks earlier at the RNC where Trump family members were welcomed to share their suggestions, according two people familiar with the sessions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Yet the friction keeps building. Among Trumps defenders, such as VanderSloot, who said the president is trying to move the ball forward, there are concerns he is picking too many fights with too many people. I think hes trying to swat too many flies, VanderSloot said.

The broader burden, some Republicans say, is to overcome a dynamic of disunity in the party that predates Trump and the current Congress. During the Obama years, it took the form of tea party-vs.-establishment struggles, which in some cases cost Republicans seats or led them to wage risky political feuds.

There was a separation between Republicanism and conservatism long before he won the White House, said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. The glue has been coming apart since Reagan.

Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.

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Republicans are in full control of government but losing control of their party - Washington Post