May 23, 2019 09:53 AM UTC

White House, Senate GOP Can't Square Talking Points

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• by: Colorado Pols

White House officials are still chirping about President Trump’s temper tantrum in lieu of a scheduled meeting with Congressional leaders about legislation to advance much-needed infrastructure improvements. As Politico reports, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders is spinning quite the load of crap:

The White House on Thursday denied that President Donald Trump’s eruption one day earlier at a meeting with Democratic leaders was a pre-planned stunt, rebuffing lawmakers’ accusations that the president was trying to bow out of serious infrastructure negotiations…[Pols emphasis]

…Senior administration officials are insisting that the Rose Garden gathering was impromptu, spurred by Trump’s discovery of Pelosi’s comments, which one official said both Sanders and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney alerted him to.

But Democrats who were at the meeting argued Thursday it’s obvious that Trump’s outburst was planned.

The idea that Trump’s tirade was a spontaneous reaction to comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier in the morning is impossible to square with images from Trump’s Rose Garden fist-shaking appearance right after he walked out of the infrastructure meeting. As multiple media outlets have noted, including CNN’s Jake Tapper, you can’t seriously claim spontaneity when you have a professionally printed sign on the front of your podium.

Meanwhile, Sanders is also trying to convey that it is Democrats, and not President Trump, who are incapable of walking and chewing gun at the same time:

“So far what we’ve seen from the Democrats in Congress, Alisyn, is that they are incapable of doing anything other than investigating this president,” Sanders told host Alisyn Camerota in an interview on CNN’s “New Day.”

But as we see in a separate story from Politico, Senate Republicans didn’t get the memo on these talking points:

Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) called on the Senate Wednesday to do more than confirm nominations and lambasted Congress for its lack of legislative accomplishments…

…“We have done nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada,” Kennedy said. [Pols emphasis]

Republican Senators acknowledge that the upper chamber is accomplishing very little. Now that President Trump is refusing to negotiate with Democrats on any issue, this inactivity will only be amplified.

House Democrats, meanwhile, have already passed major legislation on issues such as campaign finance and ethics reform; health care access and lower prescription drug costs; landmark new anti-discrimination protections; and funding for disaster relief that President Trump inexplicably opposes.

Even if the GOP eventually gets on the same page on these talking points, Republican rhetoric won’t change reality. The difference in accomplishments between Democrats and Republicans will be plenty clear for voters in 2020.