It Is Happening Every Day, Every Where
Progressive and moderate Democrats criticized a protest by Representative Al Green as a distraction, and the party leadership tried to refocus attention on economic issues.
Democrats decried the measure as a White House power grab, leaving it unclear whether the legislation could pass.
Republicans are pitching the strategy as a way of avoiding a politically damaging shutdown fight while giving President Trump more power to go around Congress and set funding levels himself.
Ten members of his party joined Republicans in voting to officially condemn the Texas Democrat after he was ejected from the president’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday. Mr. Green voted “present.”
At a mostly friendly closed-door meeting, the billionaire carrying out President Trump’s bid to shrink the federal bureaucracy fielded queries about how senators could be more involved in the effort.
Party leaders opted for a soberly delivered, centrist counter to the president’s speech, but the dominant image of Democratic pushback was a liberal congressman waving his cane in protest.
A former mayor of Houston, he was in attendance at the president’s speech on Tuesday night but was later taken to a hospital.
President Trump’s comments on tariffs and Social Security sent something of a chill through the House chamber.
In a lengthy speech, President Trump promoted his administration’s rapid early moves and reprised the themes of his campaign, vowing to crack down on illegal immigration and “wokeness.”
In a speech to Congress in his first weeks in office, the president laid out his vision to remake U.S. policy on the military, trade, immigration and foreign aid.