One Republican congressman’s wild ride on the Trump train – USA TODAY

Ohio Rep. Steve Chabot on the stormy start to Trumps presidency. Video by Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, prepares to leave his office for a House hearing.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)

WASHINGTON Once his election-night shock wore off, Rep. Steve Chabot let himself dream a little.

Republicans would finally be able to repeal Obamacare, he thought. With Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in full control of Congress, the GOP could cut taxes, zap federal regulationsand maybe even pass new abortion restrictions.

Neither Trump confidantnor Trump detractor, Chabot is a hard-core, low-profile conservative from Cincinnati who rode the Republican Contract with America to electoral victory in 1994. The veteran congressman is now on his fourth, and most unusual, president a man he has alternately praised and scolded.

On Wednesday, as Trump hurtled toward his100-day mark in the White House, Chabot was gaveling to order a hearing on the Small Business Administrations disaster loan program. It was a bastion of bipartisan oversight a collection of seasoned lawmakers and earnest bureaucrats trying to make sure a tiny but critical federal program was working efficiently.

As the hearing unfolded, Twitter was abuzz with the latest news on a possible government shutdown, GOP efforts to revive a failed health reform bill, and new threats from the White House later withdrawn to pull out of NAFTA by executive order.

The contrast was striking. At the micro-level, Washington was humming along smoothly. At the macro-level, not so much.

Welcome to the life of a rank-and-file Republican in the era of Trump.

Chabot knew Trumps tenure would be rocky, given the New York businessmans raw political instincts and his own partys unease with some of the new presidents positions not to mention unyielding Democratic resistance.

The jurys still out, Chabot said Wednesday of Trumps young presidency.

Hes thrilled with Trumps more assertive foreign policy.Hes had it with the presidents provocative tweets. Hes unconcerned, for now, about the multiple investigations into the Trump campaigns possible contacts with Russia, though perplexed by the presidents odd fondness for Russian PresidentVladimir Putin.

Hes frustrated with hardliners in his own party for torpedoing Trumps top priority repealing Obamacare a defeat he fears may derail other key elements of the GOP agenda. But hes optimistic that House Republicans will get their act together, develop a smoother relationship with the White House, and eventually accomplish big things.

Its always an adjustment with a new president, the 64-year-old congressman said. Well adjust to him and eventually hell adjust to us, and well make it work.

On the eve of Trumps inauguration, Chabot offered the incoming president some unsolicited advice: Apologize to the people hed offended during the campaign Hispanics, Muslims, POWs.

Admit you were wrong, and that you made mistakes, Chabotadvised Trump in a Jan. 18blog post on his campaign website. It echoed a similar post Chabot penned when Trump was on the verge of capturing the GOP nomination.

Stop saying thuggish things, he counseled in March 2016, admonishing Trump for appearing to incite violence at his campaign rallies. Donald, be dignified.Show some class.

Chabot and Trump have met only briefly on two occasions, and theres no evidence that Trump has ever read Chabots blog, let alone heeded any of the Cincinnati Republicans advice. At his inauguration, Trump delivered afierce America First message and then spent the next few days embroiled in a public spat with the press over the size of his inauguration crowd.

Rep. Steve Chabot arrives for a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on April 26, 2017.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USAT)

He clearly has an ego, and it works for him, Chabot said of that brouhaha. But the congressman shrugged off questions about whether Trumps false statements about crowd size, voter fraud, illegal wiretapping were troubling to him.

Its irrelevant, Chabot said of Trumps inaccurate boasts. It seems to be in his personality but I think hell get better over time.

Much more important, in his view, are two of Trumps key achievements: winning the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy, which bars U.S. aid from going to any international groups that perform or promote abortion.

There have been some accomplishments, although theyre not as significant as wed like to see, Chabot said. And the biggest failure so far, he said, is the fault of House conservatives, not Trump.

That would be the GOPs effort in March to repeal and replace Obamacare, the 2010 health reform law. Arch-conservatives in the House Freedom Caucusrefused to support a plancrafted by the House Republican leadership, despite intense lobbying and multiple revisions offered by Trump and his top aides.

Chabotnever saidhow he would have voted on that bill, arguing that because it kept changing he wasnt sure whetherhe could support it. But after GOP leaders yanked the bill in defeat, Chabot chastised the Freedom Caucus for an embarrassing loss.

We managed to come up with the votes to repeal Obamacare (about 60 times) when it really didnt matter, because it was known that Obama would veto it, Chabotwrote in his blogthat week. But now when we were shooting with real bullets, it was just too hard I cant think of a bigger legislative disappointment in my two decades in the House.

In an interview on Wednesday, Chabot pointed to new efforts to revive the Obamacare replacement bill, and he said theres a reasonably good chance that House Republicans would pass some version of that in the coming weeks. Whether anything gets through the Senate and to Trumps desk, he said, is not clear.

Theres still lots of time left to get a whole lot of things done, Chabot said.

As with any lawmaker, Chabots days are jammed with House hearings, constituent meetingsand GOP strategy sessions. When theres a fresh controversy brewing at the other at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, he usually learns about it from his colleagues, his staff, or a news alert pinging on the iPad he carries around the Capitol.

It keeps us on our toes, Chabot said when asked about the seemingly constant presidential hullabaloo, whether its a new revelation in the investigation of the Trump-Russia connections or an inflammatory tweet that has the media in a fresh frenzy.

For the most part, Chabot seems unfazed and unaffected by such events. Hes not on the House Intelligence Committee, which is probing the Russia ties. He has suggested the media and liberal activists are trying to prove Russia helped Trump win the election to discredit him, but he has also voiced support for the congressional investigations underway.

Back home, Chabot has heard from constituents who hate Trump and those who love him. He has not held any recent public town halls, opting instead for teleconferences with constituents where hes fielded mostly friendly questions. And since hes in a safe Republican district, Chabot has more freedom than other GOP lawmakers to embrace Trump on some issues and distance himself on others.

Rep. Steve Chabot attends a House Small Business Committee hearing on the SBA Disaster Loan Program.(Photo: Jack Gruber, USA TODAY)

But there is at least one person who has put Chabot on the spot publicly over Trump: Mark P. Painter, a former judge and one-time Cincinnati Republican who has called on the congressman to start drafting impeachment articles against the president.

We must end this dangerous presidency, Painterwrote in a February op-ed, published by theEnquirer. He accused Trump of doing a series of dazzlingly illegal things and called on Chabot to man-up and start drafting the articles of impeachment.

Chabot sits on the House Judiciary Committee, and he served as one of the 12 House Managers during the Senateimpeachmenttrial of then-president BillClinton. But he scoffed at Painters take on Trump.

I didnt give it a whole lot of credibility, Chabot said in between hearings and meetings on Wednesday. I think were far from any serious consideration of impeachment, and I hope we dont get there because its not a pleasant process.

Chabot insisted that Trump's tenure is not as tumultuous as it might seem to outside observer and that he's not all that different from other new presidents who struggle to settle in to such a big job.

"Right now there's a lot of energy" in Washington's political climate,he said. "I think that will probably tone down a bit as time goes on and as people get used to this president."

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One Republican congressman’s wild ride on the Trump train – USA TODAY

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