“The Freedom Caucus isn’t your ally,” the Speaker told the president, taking deep breaths. “I’m the one trying to help you get a win here. These guys will find a reason to vote against anything we produce.”
That weekend, a few days after their impromptu meeting at the White House, Meadows flew down to Florida to spend time with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s Florida resort. The Freedom Caucus chairman lobbied aggressively for changes to Ryan’s package, capping a week of wrangling about making alterations to the House bill. Trump eyed Meadows warily, remembering what Ryan had told him. By the end of the weekend, however, the president was on board, pledging to push for the conservative modifications.
But Ryan had learned another lesson in dealing with the president: Always be the last voice in his ear.
With Trump set to speak Tuesday morning at the House GOP conference meeting, Ryan spent Monday night working the president, reminding him of the fragile dynamics within the party, urging him to deliver the message that there would be no negotiating the details of the bill. When he rose to address the lawmakers, Trump had a simple message: There would be no further changes to the health care package. He expected Republicans to rally around Ryan’s version.
Meadows was dumbstruck. For months, he had boasted about his relationship with Trump; more than once, he had arranged for the president to call him during one of the weekly Freedom Caucus meetings, making a show of answering and thereby wowing a collection of members who had never enjoyed real proximity to power. Upon returning from Mar-a-Lago, Meadows had triumphantly informed them that Trump was on their side. Now they were all staring at him.
Suddenly, so, too, was the president. Implying that there would be consequences for disloyalty to the party, Trump called out the Freedom Caucus chairman by name. “Stand up, Mark,” he announced, half-smiling and half-leering at the congressman, who rose weak-kneed from his chair. “Mark, I’m gonna come after you if you don’t support us on this.” Then Trump turned to the rest of the room. “I think Mark Meadows will get on board.”
It was a crucial misreading of the North Carolina congressman’s situation. Months into his chairmanship, some of his colleagues in the Freedom Caucus still feared Meadows was too cozy with Trump and would hesitate to defy the White House. The health care fight was shaping up as a test of Meadows’s independence from Trump; the moment the president called him out, the Freedom Caucus chairman was boxed in. If he gave even an inch now, he would confirm the whispers of the skeptical members in his group.
Meadows, thoroughly chastened by Trump’s routine in the conference meeting, rushed to leave the room once it adjourned. But he was stopped by Patrick McHenry, his colleague in the North Carolina delegation and the leadership’s chief deputy whip. “He’s gonna come after you, Mark!” McHenry said, practically squealing with glee.
Meadows’s face, already flush, was now glowing red. “You’re not helping, Patrick!” he growled. He turned and took several steps away, leaving McHenry and a small crowd of gawkers gaping. They had never seen Meadows lose his customary cool.
Meadows spun back around. The creases in his brow had vanished; the amber in his cheeks was gone. Placing his hand on McHenry’s shoulder, he said, “But I still love you.” The onlookers, including several of the Freedom Caucus members, traded looks of incomprehension.
Back-channeling with the administration in the hope of changing the president’s mind, Meadows and Jordan landed what they thought was an invitation to the White House the next day, Wednesday, March 22. Instead, they found themselves hauled into the less-than-inspiring Executive Office Building for a pep rally with Pence, Priebus, Bannon, and other administration staffers—but not the president himself. The Freedom Caucus members realized there would be no more negotiating. Pence tried to pump them up, saying the fight was theirs to win and that they needed to help Trump and Ryan score a victory for the new administration. The plea landed on deaf ears.
“You need to take one for the team, guys,” Bannon said, growling like a sergeant instructing a roomful of privates. “You have no choice but to vote for this bill.”
Joe Barton, a conservative elder statesman from Texas, couldn’t handle being lectured to by the likes of Bannon. “The last time someone ordered me to something, I was eighteen years old, and it was my daddy,” Barton told the chief strategist. “I didn’t listen to him, either.”
The room filled with uncomfortable silence. Bannon backed down and the meeting went on. (Barton eventually announced his support for the legislation; all told, Trump was responsible for moving upward of 10 votes over the course of the month.) After several hours, the members returned to the Capitol feeling frustrated. Several complained to Meadows that the meeting had been a waste of time and wondered if he had lost the president’s ear for good.
That night, however, the White House sent word to the Freedom Caucus that one thing they had been pushing—reforms to the “essential health benefits” provision under Title I of the Affordable Care Act—could be negotiated. Excitement spread throughout the group. But there was also confusion: Some members believed that such a concession would be enough to win their vote, while others felt it was only a step in the right direction. As they sought to clarify their internal disagreements, there was another meeting scheduled for the next morning, Thursday, March 23—this one at the White House and with the president himself.
Renewed with hope, Freedom Caucus members were once again promptly disappointed. The next day’s meeting was yet another “take one for the team” seminar. The atmosphere was friendly enough; the president had the group laughing with irrelevant riffs and stories of negotiations past. But it became clear, as soon as he made the “little shit” comment, that no serious changes were going to be made.
The problem was coming into focus. Trump possessed the requisite tools of a salesman; he had converted a handful of holdouts with late-night phone calls, using a blend of profane jokes, veiled threats, and appeals to loyalty. But the president was handicapped by his inherent disinterest in the specifics of the bill. He didn’t have a sufficient grasp of the policy, or of the legislative dynamics in Congress, to know what could or couldn’t pass.
Ryan, conversely, knew every nook and cranny of the legislative text. Having served as the chairman of two relevant committees—Budget, and Ways and Means—the Speaker was deeply versed in the details of his proposal. Unfortunately, he had no marketing skills to complement his command of the subject matter. He had alienated many of his members with his assertion of a “binary choice,” and not just the conservatives. As they drew closer to a scheduled vote in the House on Friday, a growing number of moderate Republicans signaled their opposition to the bill, expressing frustration that Ryan and his leadership team were cramming it down the conference’s throat.
As the reality of the bill’s likely defeat set in on Thursday afternoon, Trump’s team began to assign responsibility to Ryan, most notably feeding quotes to a New York Times story that questioned the Speaker’s approach.15 Ryan’s team was prepared for this. They had already begun pushing the blame toward Trump; subtly at first, calling him “the closer,” then more overtly, emphasizing that it was the president’s job to deliver the Freedom Caucus.