Donald Trump's team is hatching a plan to try to avert impeachment by having Trump make deals with moderate House Democrats on policy. Because apparently Trump's team is completely untethered from reality.
The Washington Post reports that they're looking at Democrats from the 31 congressional districts that Trump won in 2016 and thinking they can win them over to vote against impeachment by working with them on—get this—infrastructure. Because it's always infrastructure week. But also on "improving trade deals and lowering the cost of prescription drugs." Right. Because Trump is so amenable to people telling him he's been wrong on trade. And because it will be so easy to get Mitch McConnell to go along with all this and allow House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to have policy wins.
This will certainly make them feel like working with Trump, too: "The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have launched $10 million in television and digital ads that bludgeon many of the same Democrats the White House is courting." Seems like maybe they haven't thought this one all the way through. There's also the problem that is Trump. His attacks on one of their own, Rep. Adam Schiff, are becoming increasingly unhinged and dangerous and are unlikely to make him any friends among Democrats.
They also haven’t thought out the part where the plan gives Pelosi the ability to continue to say that Democrats are perfectly willing to work with the president to pass all the priorities they have identified while the impeachment inquiry progresses. One of the likely targets, freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, says she'd be "absolutely" interested in doing policy work, but she's not going to make any deals to halt impeachment to do it. "That's not the way it works," she said. "That's not the way that our Constitution is written. […] The president of the United States acknowledged openly that he went to a foreign leader and asked for dirt on an American. I cannot give up the rule of law in some trade. That is not something anyone should be trading away."
The stupid alone makes it worth trying to get even more seats from Trump. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these House races!