Bannon Makes His Move Against Ryan-- The Move To Boehnerize The Speaker Is On

Very specific definition of "comrade"

According to NY Times reporter, Glenn Thrush, the very "idea that Trump worked hard to pass health care is a joke. He put in a semi-strenuous week-- spent little time on prep, drafting, per aides." Thrush isn't alone in that analysis. Amanda Carpenter is a professional right-wing nut. She used to write speeches for Jim DeMint and washed up in Ted Cruz's office when DeMint bailed ion the Senate. Sunday she chastised Señor Trumpanzee by tweeting that "President Obama worked for years to get Obamacare. You gave up on repeal after a couple weeks. Too complicated for you? Weak!," following that up with "Donald Trump has officially become Washington. Blaming Democrats, blaming conservatives, blaming everyone for his failure to deliver" and then moved on to "Dear R's in Congress: Ignore Trump in negotiations and send bills to his desk. He'll take those as wins bc he has no other choice." In the process, she laughed at the prospect of Trumpist boob Chris Collins replacing Paul Ryan as Speaker with "his caucus of none to enact the next legislative agenda item." Why is anyone talking about one Congress' silliest jokes, Chris Collins, as Speaker?

You are probably aware that on Saturday morning Señor Trumpanzee tweeted his 27 million followers that they had to watch "Judge" Jeanine's Fox at 9pm that night. And when they tuned in, the first thing the "judge" did was launch a vitriolic attack on Speaker Ryan and demand his resignation. The NY Times' Maggie Haberman reported Sunday that Reince Priebus insisted that the Trumpanzee tweet and the "judge" Jeanine diatribe were just coincidental. I bet their are Trump fans stupid enough to buy that, perhaps many of them. No normal people though.

Bannon, of course, is behind all this. Remember, it was Bannon-- a longtime Ryan hater-- who was skipping around DC whispering it any Republican who would listen that TrumpCare was such a disastrous bill because Ryan allowed the insurance industry-- which has given him $2,031,705 in bribes-- to write it. Bannon's power-base, Breitbart, started, once again, revving up the drumbeat for Ryan's ouster over the weekend. "Republican officials in Congress and the White House," asserted Matthew Boyle, "are now openly discussing finding a GOP replacement to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) as Speaker of the House, after Ryan failed to pass the American Health Care Act out of the House and misled the public and President Donald Trump when he promised repeatedly the bill would pass... Many allies of the president and several White House officials over the weeks since have confirmed to Breitbart News that the president is concerned that Ryan may not have his-- or his agenda’s-- best interests at heart. Ryan’s failure to deliver the votes on healthcare cement Trump’s skepticism of Ryan, they say." This is straight out of the Mercer/Bannon playbook.

“This is another example of the staff not serving the president well and the weakness of the Paul Ryan speakership,” a source close to President Trump told Breitbart News. “This calls into question once again the speaker’s commitment to supporting Donald Trump and his agenda.”

“Speaker Ryan proved today that he does not have the best interests of the President at heart,” said another source close to the president. “He sold out the president and showed his word can be taken with a grain of salt. There is only one course of action that should be taken to move past this catastrophe and that is the swift removal of Paul Ryan from the speakership.”

White House sources tell Breitbart News that the president is very frustrated with Ryan and feels that he has saved him multiple times already. After the election in November, it was widely reported that there were enough Republican votes to remove Ryan as Speaker-- and the only reason conservatives kept him is that Trump won the election and embraced Ryan. But now Trump may perceive Ryan as a burden rather than someone who can help enact his agenda.

A senior Senate GOP aide questioned whether Ryan has the chops to continue in the position.

“A tale as old as time, our establishment leadership continue advocating for moderate pieces of legislation after ignoring conservative input,” the Senate aide said. “How can President Donald Trump trust Speaker Paul Ryan in the future after this failure? If he couldn’t deliver on something so simple as repealing Obamacare, will he be able to deliver on complex pieces of legislation?”

House Republicans are also questioning whether Ryan can remain as Speaker after this abysmal failure.

“If Speaker Ryan cannot pass his RyanCare plan and negotiations had to be taken to the Oval Office by non-leadership members of the conference, it is certainly time to evaluate his effectiveness as the Speaker of the House,” a senior House GOP aide told Breitbart News.

Senior aides from at least seven House GOP offices-- only two from the House Freedom Caucus-- tell Breitbart News that there is significant discussion conference-wide about a replacement to Ryan as Speaker of the House.

It has gotten so far along in the process that alternative names are being thrown around—anyone from House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), to former Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)—to Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and Peter Roskam (R-IL), according to one senior House GOP aide.

Democrats have their fingers crossed that GOP makes Issa their leader

...There are ongoing discussions in House offices conference-wide whether Republicans should use the same tactic that conservatives used in 2015 to remove now-former Speaker John Boehner from the House. Back then, Meadows-- then just a member of the House Freedom Caucus-- introduced what is called a resolution with a motion to vacate the chair. He did so just before August recess, allowing it to gain public support.

When it reached critical mass, and enough Republicans backed it publicly or privately, a group of members approached Boehner to inform him they had enough votes to remove him from the Speakership. To avoid the public embarrassment of a vote in which he would be defeated, Boehner resigned and allowed for the peaceful shift to his eventual successor, Ryan-- which only happened after a tumultuous process. Members are beginning to wonder if it is now the time to use the same move on Ryan, given his disloyalty to Trump. Some Republicans want to wait for a smoke signal or sign from the White House that the president wants Ryan gone. Others want to just get it over with to help the president move on from the mess Ryan created.

Asked explicitly whether President Trump has confidence in Ryan remaining as Speaker, White House press secretary Sean Spicer would not answer Breitbart News, yes or no.

...What is more interesting, though, is Ryan seems to have lost control of the House of Representatives. One senior House GOP aide in an office not connected to the Freedom Caucus argued that Meadows-- the Freedom Caucus chairman who had been negotiating directly with President Trump in recent days-- has emerged as the new House GOP leader. “Meadows is the acting Speaker of the House,” the senior GOP aide in a non-Freedom Caucus office told Breitbart News. “The president now knows on future bills that Ryan cannot deliver the votes in his own conference, and he will have to negotiate directly with the different factions of the House. Ryan has lost the ability to lead the House. He is broken.”

As Breitbart News has previously reported, members have begun discussing this bill as Ryan’s death knell-- or at least the beginning of it. Ryan’s inability to maneuver the House of Representatives sufficiently to deliver on his promise to pass this bill has hampered his effectiveness and put at risk future legislation, such as tax reform, as well. Top conservative leaders are demanding that if he does stay on as Speaker-- by no means a certainty-- he change his ways.

Of course-- as carefully planned out at Mercer's Owl's Nest estate in Head of the Harbor, Long Island-- this has already moved well beyond Breitbart-world. Over the weekend, the NY Times was already crowing that Ryan had emerged from the healthcare defeat "badly damaged." His relationship with Trump, they reported is "imperiled... Ryan is now tasked with defending not just his leadership abilities but his very brand of conservatism in a party fitfully searching for a coherent policy identity that can deliver tangible victories."

His job will not get easier. With disparate coalitions in his conference, outside groups like the political arm of the Heritage Foundation pushing lawmakers to pursue conservative purity, and a less-than-popular president whom some members have appeared more willing to buck recently, there are few establishment forces helping Mr. Ryan keep the peace.

And next up on the agenda: mammoth and unaffordable tax cuts for the ultra-rich. This time Trump and the Freedom Caucus extremists are-- at least partially-- on the same side against Ryan and the more mainstream conservatives. The Freedom Caucus says tax cuts don't need to be off-set while the Republican dogma Ryan embraces insists on a revenue-neutral bill. Trump doesn't worry about dogma-- or consequences past the next poll-- and the idea of revenue-neutral would be anathema to him if he even knew what it meant. Still... he is Donald Trump and don't be surprised if he even screws this one up. Priebus was on Fox News Sunday yesterday warning Republicans that the White would work with the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the New Dems and Blue Dogs-- if the House Republicans step out of line on some of his more crackpot schemes, like a "border tax" that many conservatives-- and virtually all legitimate economists-- oppose.