Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Trump Was Not Happy About the NRSC Memo

I could not have engineered a story that better illustrates the clash of institutional perspectives within a party.

Alex Isenstadt at Politico:
Earlier this month, the Senate Republican campaign arm circulated a memo with shocking advice to GOP candidates on responding to coronavirus: “Don’t defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban — attack China.”
The Trump campaign was furious.

On Monday — just days after POLITICO first reported the existence of the memo — Trump political adviser Justin Clark told NRSC executive director Kevin McLaughlin that any Republican candidate who followed the memo’s advice shouldn’t expect the active support of the reelection campaign and risked losing the support of Republican voters.

McLaughlin responded by saying he agreed with the Trump campaign’s position and, according to two people familiar with the conversation, clarified that the committee wasn’t advising candidates to not defend Trump over his response.
The episode illustrates how the Trump political apparatus demands — and receives — fealty from fellow Republicans and moves aggressively to tamp down on any perceived dissent within the GOP. The president maintains an iron grip on his party, even as his poll numbers sag and he confronts fierce criticism from Democrats over his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
This episode recalls something similar in 1990.  George H.W. Bush acceded to a tax increase.  NRCC's Ed Rollins, sought to limit the damage to House GOP candidates and told them that they should not hesitate to break with Bush on the issue.  Bush lashed out at Rollins.  As you may recall, I've told the story of my own tangential involvement.  A friend down the hall drafted the Rollins NRCC memo, while I drafted Lee Atwater's RNC letter asking House Republicans to support the tax increase.

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