After a turbulent few weeks to begin his presidency, Republicans in Congress are already fed up with President Donald Trump in one key respect: lack of communication.
More than half a dozen GOP members and staffers told NOTUS that Trump’s sudden moves have yielded thousands of questions from distressed constituents, with congressional offices receiving an unusual influx of calls and emails in response to the president’s executive orders. And because Trump and the White House have refused to give Republicans a heads up about their unexpected directives, lawmakers don’t have any answers.
The poor communication — no advance notice, no talking points, no discussion — is already straining Trump’s relationships on Capitol Hill, with one House GOP leadership aide telling NOTUS the situation is making life more difficult for lawmakers.
“They need to get their shit together,” this aide said of the White House.
As Trump begins his second term, he’s shown little concern with how his controversial decisions will affect vulnerable Republicans. He issued an unpopular and unexpected blanket pardon of all Jan. 6 offenders on Inauguration Day. He has shuttered agencies without warning. And he froze foreign and domestic aid — only to suddenly unfreeze some of it after many Republicans stepped forward to defend him.
On Tuesday, Trump also suggested that the United States would “take over” the Gaza Strip, a proposal that even the most Trump-friendly Republicans found hard to believe.
At every step of the way, Trump’s impulsive decisions blindsided Republicans in Congress.
Take, for example, the federal aid freeze. When the Trump administration announced the policy, House Republicans were in Florida on an annual policy retreat. The president had addressed the GOP conference earlier that night, and nowhere in his speech — or privately behind closed doors — was there a discussion of a pause of federal aid.
The next morning, as House Republicans emerged from their hotel rooms, reporters were eager to ask lawmakers about the controversial memo. Some Republicans instinctively defended the decision. Others condemned it. But many Republicans had no idea what reporters were even talking about.
“Hard to defend controversial executive orders when there’s no heads-up nor rationale,” one GOP member told NOTUS.
To complicate matters, the administration didn’t provide talking points to Republicans until halfway through the next day, members told NOTUS. Seeing the confusion, House Republican staffers tried to fill the void, scrambling to write their own talking points on a federal aid freeze that they themselves barely understood.
Aides simply tried their best — and had to shove their phones in the hands of waiting lawmakers before they talked to the press. (The staffers didn’t even have time to print out their talking points.)
Although the administration would eventually provide members with talking points and an FAQ document on the freeze, it was too late. The narrative had taken hold that Trump was pausing all federal aid and Republicans were left defending a move that would be rescinded just 24 hours later.
A second GOP member said they were receiving calls from constituents who were “shitting Twinkies” about the memo, asking for clarity on what would be affected. The problem was: the members themselves didn’t have that clarity.
“I wish they would communicate in advance,” this GOP member said of the White House.
(The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)
Of course, not everyone is upset. Yet another GOP lawmaker emphasized that “this is how President Trump does things,” adding that, while it “can be very challenging at times,” it shouldn’t make people too uncomfortable.
“It can be a very choppy process, but at least at the end of it, we always seem to get a great conclusion for the country,” this member said.
Another member said that, while there “was the big communications issue” on the federal aid freeze, “everything else has seemingly been better.”
But other lawmakers aren’t so pleased. A number of Republicans have expressed concern to the White House about the lack of communication, two sources told NOTUS. And most recently, during a closed-door GOP meeting on Tuesday, lawmakers told Jeff Freeland — the House liaison for the White House’s office of legislative affairs — that since the administration hasn’t been providing talking points for Trump’s executive orders or decisions, Republicans didn’t have the necessary answers or information to give their constituents.
“It’s true that members are really frustrated. A member recently complained and OLA joked that the best they could do was offer the member a signing pen,” a source in the room during the confrontation told NOTUS.
A fourth GOP member added that, while there’s a “never-ending stream of press releases” from the White House, there aren’t documents or memos “laying out the facts” and giving GOP lawmakers the “why and how the message should be delivered.”
It’s that lack of communication that seems to be angering Republicans the most, and lawmakers suggested that these small annoyances now could cost Trump and the GOP later.
Yet another GOP member told NOTUS that it didn’t seem like the White House understood “the breadth of what they are trying to do.”
“Burning up political goodwill at an alarming rate,” this member said.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.