Subject: Event: Trump meets with Mitch McConnell and Senate GOP Leadership, 5.12
From: "Kasnetz, Joel" <[email-masked]>
To: Research_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 06:48:59 -0700

The meeting between Trump and the Senate GOP leadership will be at 11:45 a.m. Thursday

https://armenpress.am/eng/print/846650/trump-faces-icy-gop-reception-in-congress.html

Donald Trump is going to Washington to schmooze and try to mend fences with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP. But he'll need quite the charm offensive to win over skeptical Republicans, reports Politico.
After McConnell's tepid endorsement of the presumptive GOP nominee, Trump made plans to meet with the Senate majority leader and his team on Thursday morning. But even as he's scored an audience with top leaders, Trump on Monday was still having problems ginning up clear endorsements, or even statements of support, from his fellow Republicans.

On Monday, several senators offered muddled accounts on whether they will support Trump, with New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte telling a local news station that she'll vote for Trump but won't be making an endorsement and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey conceding it's possible he doesn't end up supporting him for president. Meanwhile, the business mogul continued to break with party orthodoxy by saying he would have the U.S. government print money to avoid a debt default and encourage states to raise the minimum wage. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, one of Trump's strongest Republican critics in the Senate, told reporters that he has gotten no overtures yet from Trump and that he plans to skip the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this summer.
"Just no reason to be there," Flake said, with a laugh. "Lots to do at home."

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, whose state holds its primary on Tuesday, also signaled she isn't ready to get behind Trump. "I haven't met him yet, I want to get a chance to talk to him about some issues," she briefly told reporters.
These developments are unsettling to longtime Republicans like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) who say GOP leaders should attend the convention and that "true Republicans ought to support the Republican candidate."
But even Hatch doesn't have anything on the schedule yet for when Trump comes to Washington. The two spoke a few weeks ago, with Hatch -- who first endorsed Jeb Bush, then Marco Rubio -- joking that he wouldn't bestow his "kiss of death" endorsement on Trump during the competitive primary season. But now that Trump is set to be the nominee, Hatch hasn't been asked to make his support official.

"He hasn't called me or indicated [there will be a meeting]. But I'd love to. I'm going to support whoever our candidate is. I have to say I'd like to talk to Donald Trump," Hatch told reporters on Monday afternoon. "We have an obligation to support our nominee. Maybe he'll ask for my endorsement, maybe he won't. I don't know."

The meeting between Trump and the Senate GOP leadership will be at 11:45 a.m. Thursday. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the first senator to endorse Trump, said "there will be many such meetings" between GOP senators and Trump, and "I think it will be healthy."
Along with Ayotte and Toomey, at-risk Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois andSen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have no plans yet to meet with Trump, nor does Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, who was yoked to Trump in a scathing two-minute ad last week by his Democratic opponent, Conner Eldridge.

A placid National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi said he's "willing" to meet with Trump but isn't actively seeking a sit-down. Wicker will go to Cleveland for the GOP convention and gently suggested that his incumbent candidates may not be sunk by Trump.

"I really feel pretty good, actually," Wicker said.

But meanwhile, the party is split among a range of factions, from the ardent Never Trump movement, to the handful who have officially endorsed Trump and a wide range of positions between. Boozman said he'd do "everything I can" to help the GOP nominee get elected, while Toomey said Monday he hopes "we don't get to a point where I decide I just can't support him."
Both are up for reelection, though Toomey faces a far stiffer challenge.

And other Republicans on the ballot this year were careful to say they would support Trump as the nominee -- particularly to avoid a third straight Democratic term in the White House -- while emphasizing they've got their own election fight to focus on.
"Not concerned because I run as if I've got the toughest race ahead of me, regardless," Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is vying for his seventh term this November, told reporters. "I'm going to have to run my own race, regardless of who our nominee is."

Added Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who is also up for reelection: "My only concern is me doing everything I need to do to get reelected. I can control what I do. I can't control what somebody else does."

That Republicans wouldn't clamor for an audience with their presumptive nominee during what should be a victory tour for Trump speaks to the deep reluctance among Republicans to hitch their party's fortunes to the business mogul. And it's not just senators running for reelection -- prominent committee chairman don't sound enthusiastic about exchanging ideas with Trump this week, either.

"I do not," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, when asked whether he had plans to meet with Trump this week. "Never met him."

The divisions go far beyond the Senate. The party's previous nominees, like John McCain, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, are all staying away from Cleveland.

And Sessions was critical of Ryan's surprise comments last week saying the speaker wasn't yet ready to fully endorse Trump as the party's nominee, calling the speaker's surprising comments a "mistake."

"He calls on people every day to follow the Republican leader in the House, and he's the highest-ranking, some say, Republican in the land," Sessions said. "The American people have voted substantially for a candidate who has a real chance of being the next president, and I think he should be supportive."

Those used to party unity think it's time for everyone to get over it.

"Frankly, I think it's unfortunate some of the words that have been used. But [he'll] get over that when Donald Trump realizes what a truly good man he is," Hatch said. "He's going to thank God for Paul Ryan."