How Pelosi broke with Obama--Behind the Scenes of the TAA/TPA
by Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Lauren French--Politico-6/12/15
Her final-hour move against the president’s trade agenda marks a low point in a relationship that produced his biggest achievements.
It had come to this: Nancy Pelosi needed John Boehner to help save her party and her president from an ugly public meltdown.
By Friday morning, it was clear that a crucial piece of Barack Obama’s trade initiative was barreling toward defeat. Democrats were disjointed, dispirited, even angry in some cases. At the same time, they knew that they – not Republicans – would shoulder much of the blame for killing the president’s top legislative priority and for the ensuing spectacle of a party at war.
So just before noon, with debate already underway on the House floor, Pelosi picked up the phone and called Boehner to inform him that a must-pass component of the White House trade package was going to fail. It was the second such warning from Pelosi to Boehner in two days.
“Are you still going ahead?” Pelosi asked him, according to sources familiar with the call. “Are you going to pull the bill?”
No, he wasn’t, Boehner replied. This was his best chance to push fast-track trade authority across his unpredictable House floor, he told Pelosi.
Hours later, the House resoundingly defeated Trade Adjustment Assistance, a federal aid program to help workers who lose their jobs to free trade. The vote effectively scuttled Obama’s bid for fast-track trade authority – though Republicans may try to revive it in the coming days or weeks – because it was conditioned on approval of the jobs bill.
Pelosi was a minor player for much of Obama’s push to secure authority to clinch the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation pact that would be the largest free-trade deal in history. But as the vote neared, and major Democratic opposition bubbled to the surface, she was in a wrenching position: naturally inclined to deliver for a president she’s worked hand-in-glove with for years, but all-too-aware of the strong progressive winds within her caucus against a deal Democrats believe would jilt American workers.
Up until moments before Friday’s vote, Pelosi hadn’t told a soul how she was going to vote on TAA or Trade Promotion Authority, the fast-track trade law Obama was seeking.
No one could get a good read on her: Some Democrats thought Pelosi was wary of the trade package, others believed she’d ultimately back Obama. Still others figured she’d split the difference, backing TAA, but bucking Obama’s request for fast-track authority.
More....interesting read at:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/how-pelosi-broke-with-obama-118961.html?ml=tl_10_b
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