Boy, are Republicans not happy at all with their standard-bearer Donald Trump and his unilateral decision to try to blow up health care all over again for the 2020 election. From the top guy for Republicans in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who called Trump up to tell him it was a big mistake, to consultants and advisers and allies and, well, pretty much everybody but the Freedom Caucus maniacs, Trump's decision to try to nuke the Affordable Care Act in the courts has Republicans baffled. And angry.
"The average health-care recipient won't say, 'It's the evil courts that struck it down. They'll say, 'Oh, Trump struck it down.' That's the problem," said Tom Davis, former head of the National Republican Campaign Committee. "So there has to be a Plan B," he continued. "And with Democrats controlling the House you'll get a Plan B- at best." Let's be real here. With Democrats controlling the House, Trump won't get anything he wants. Trump's calculation seems to be that he can force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the negotiating table and convince her to give up the single most important policy achievement by Democrats in decades. He's tried that before. It doesn't work.
From the Senate side, this one is particularly good from a senior leadership aide for Republicans: "I feel comfortable saying that I speak for almost, if not all, Republican senators when I say that this is the last thing they want to discuss. Whoever planted this idea in the president's head should be drawn and quartered." That “whoever” would be Mick Mulvaney. You can take the maniac out of the Freedom Caucus, but you can't take the Freedom Caucus out of the maniac. Another senior aide said, "It is the equivalent of punching yourself in the face repeatedly." It's not going over any better with their bosses. One tells The Hill, "We would be crazy to try to go through what we went through again." Another says "It doesn't seem to make sense politically."
No, no it does not. And it's hard to imagine anyone but Mulvaney (and Mulvaney's handpicked head of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan) thinking it's brilliant. There's also the slight problem of Attorney General Bill Barr happily signing off on a legal position that's even dumber than the original position the Justice Department took, the one that caused a senior lawyer in the department to resign, it was so bad.
The 5th Circuit, where this case is currently under consideration, is pretty damned politicized and pretty damned partisan. But as partisan as Mitch McConnell or as partisan as the Freedom Caucus? If they're looking out for the party, they'll figure out a way to drag this out forever or just overturn the lower court ruling. If they're nihilists like Mulvaney, all bets are off.