Sources: Trump learned a lesson on dealmaking
Republican sources close to the White House, aides inside the Trump administration, and GOP congressional staff involved in the health care process appear to agree on one thing: President Donald Trump has received a stinging lesson on dealmaking in Washington."He didn't care or particularly know about health care," a key GOP congressional aide said about Trump following the stunning defeat of the Republican health care plan Friday."If you are going to be a great negotiator, you have to know about the subject matter," the aide said, adding that overhauling health care is far different from building a golf course.
But one GOP source close to the White House said the health care fiasco is also a revealing moment for House Speaker Paul Ryan and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, two longtime Washington insiders.
The decision to delay the vote marks an acute embarrassment for the President, but the failure of the GOP plan also puts Ryan in a much-weakened political position."Trump hadn't failed in politics until Reince and Ryan got involved," the GOP source said.
Trump and his top aides also appeared to have moments when they alienated both the conservative and moderate Republicans needed to close the deal.At one meeting Trump held with members of the "Tuesday Group," an informal caucus of moderate Republicans, the lawmakers went around the room and answered where they stood on the bill. When Pennsylvania's Charlie Dent said he was a "no," Trump replied, "Why am I even talking to you?"
White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon had his own run-in with the Freedom Caucus, which features many of his fellow like-minded conservatives."I don't give a shit what you guys think," Bannon exclaimed at a Thursday night meeting with the caucus, a source familiar with the meeting said. The sense in the room was Bannon lost his cool.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/donald-trump-lesson-deal-making-health-care/index.html
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It's fun to watch them fail as a result. They are accountable to no one, including Donald Trump or the Republican Party, and the GOP set that up with the gerrymandering and dark money fuckery.
An examle of what they did to themselves: Freedom Caucus chair Meadows is an NC rep. His district was a center-right swing district until the NC GOP cut Asheville out and moved it to another district. Now it is crazy far-right. Here is a post I did about the change in boundaries: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028843252
And I can't even tell where Meadows get his donations. They are mostly from ideologically motivated PACs. One of his important staffers used to work for Kochs, so he might be their puppet too. Senator Thom Tillis is and Kochs have their hooks deeply into NC in general through Art Pope's groups, so it is a definite possibility.
http://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/136459/mark-meadows#.WNe_eBjMxE5
Anyway, Meadows is def bought and paid for by a bunch of dark money. All of this means he has zero accountability to the actual Republican Party. He doesn't have to rely on the party for fund raising and they drew his seat to be so safe, the only way he can lose is from the right, and not even sure if there IS a farther right. I think you just fall off the face of the earth if you go farther right that Meadows.
So they did this to themselves and cannot fix it until the deal with the oceans of dark money are vicious gerrymandering they loosed on our country. It's kinda fun to watch them twist in the wind now 
We did warn them not to do these things, to work with Democrats and make compromises. But oh well.... Sucks to be them now.
I researched Meadows because I am familiar with the NC maps. Be fun if someone else wants to do some of the other Freedom Caucus members. Or maybe I will work on it later. It is interesting to see how little tweaks to a map make HUGE differences down the line.
