Thread: Ryan and Meadows clash on House floor, leaving immigration bills on thin ice

Ryan and Meadows clash on House floor, leaving immigration bills on thin ice


June 20, 2018

Mike DeBonis

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) listens during a joint House Committee on the Judiciary and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)



A House immigration bill meticulously negotiated by Republicans appeared to be on the brink of failure ahead of a planned Thursday vote after House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and a top conservative leader engaged in an unusually heated floor confrontation Wednesday.


Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) argued with Ryan in plain view of lawmakers, aides and reporters during a Wednesday afternoon vote — a dispute that Meadows later confirmed surrounded the immigration votes scheduled for Thursday. The typically mild-mannered Meadows could be seen repeating “it doesn’t matter” as Ryan spoke to him, and he walked away from Ryan at one point only to return and continue arguing.


Speaking to reporters afterward, Meadows accused Ryan and other House leaders of a bait-and-switch — agreeing to a deal on what would be contained in the compromise legislation only to leave key provisions out of the final text.


“There were things that were supposed to be in the compromise bill that everybody agreed to,” Meadows said. “The talking points do not match the legislative text.”


The 11th-hour blowup added another wrinkle to a tumultuous six-week-long process touched off when a group of moderate Republican rebels filed a “discharge” petition to force votes on immigration legislation. That forced Ryan and GOP leaders to convene negotiations aimed at writing a consensus Republican bill that could pass the House to forestall passage of more liberal bipartisan bills that would pass with mostly Democratic votes.



The negotiations came to a head last week, with a handshake agreement to vote on two bills: a more conservative option that would include hard-line enforcement measures and leave out a guaranteed path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers,” and a second bill written to serve as a compromise between the House GOP’s conservative and moderate wings.


The legislation has now been further complicated by the Trump administration’s decision to separate migrant children from their parents at the southwest border, which has forced leaders to add language addressing the ensuing humanitarian and political crisis.


It’s the compromise bill — which offers dreamers a path to citizenship along with funding for a border wall and other GOP immigration priorities — that sparked Meadows’s complaints Wednesday, though he also lodged separate concerns about which version of the more conservative bill would be voted on Thursday. Meadows would not describe which specific provisions were omitted from the bill.



A spokeswoman for Ryan did not return messages seeking comment on the clash with Meadows. But a Republican aide familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the talks disputed that parts of the deal were left out of the bill and noted that Meadows waited two days after negotiations over the bill were closed to raise his objections.



“His team has been part of the process the whole time,” the aide said.
Meadows said Wednesday that he would vote against the compromise bill — something, he said, he wasn’t “necessarily” planning to do: “I’ve invested days and days of my life to try to come up with a compromise that quite frankly is not meted out in the legislative text that reflects those conversations.”



That dispute unfolded Wednesday alongside a whole separate basket of concerns from other House Republicans about the two immigration bills and how they would handle various aspects of the issue — including whether they would resolve the family separations crisis. Trump’s executive order on Wednesday appeared only to delay the need for congressional action, and members remained confused about what legislation Trump wanted them to pass.


Both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen appeared Wednesday before groups of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill to make the case for action. But the case was muddied by Trump’s own apparent indecision, which was put on display Tuesday night when he addressed the House GOP in a closed-door meeting where he did not offer a clear endorsement for the compromise bill.





Several lawmakers polled Tuesday night and Wednesday said that they did not feel pressured by Trump to support that bill. One of them, Rep. Roger Williams (R-Tex.), said he was “not there” on the compromise bill and felt he could be a “good conservative” and still vote for only the more conservative option.



“He talked more about [the compromise bill] than the other, but he also said that he would sign whatever he got to his desk,” he said, explaining that the more conservative bill “takes on the issues I’m concerned about.”


Some conservative policy groups have started weighing in against the compromise bill. Heritage Action for America announced on Tuesday that it would score lawmakers on their votes, declaring, “Passing amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants right before a midterm election would be a grave political miscalculation.”


Inside a closed-door morning conference meeting, according to multiple members present, Ryan and other top leaders sought to assure lawmakers that Trump stood foursquare behind the “compromise” bill negotiated between moderate and conservative Republicans after Trump left it unclear Tuesday night that he had any preference as to which bill he preferred they support.


“The message was, even though the president was a little unclear, perhaps, in his chat, that he was very much in favor of the [compromise] bill, and we’ll see what happens,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said.





At one point in the meeting, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) acknowledged the uncertainty by recounting an exchange he had had with Trump on Tuesday night as they left the Capitol. McCarthy said he mentioned to Trump that lawmakers might not have understood that he supported the compromise bill; Trump, he said, reacted with surprise, saying that he spent most of his remarks praising the compromise.
“He said he was 1,000 percent,” McCarthy said Wednesday, confirming the exchange. “In his mind, he was very clear: He was just talking about the [compromise] bill.”



Later Wednesday, in an address to the Republican Study Committee, Sessions did little to clear up the confusion — or put at ease skittish lawmakers who are concerned that Trump could change his mind, much as he supported an omnibus spending bill in April only to publicly slam it later.


“We support both bills,” Sessions told the group, according to a person present for the closed-door remarks. “That’s my understanding of the president’s position, but I could be wrong.”


By late Wednesday, House leaders said they remained on track to hold votes on the two bills Thursday even though both bills remain well short of the necessary votes to pass, according to three GOP officials familiar with a survey of House Republicans conducted after Trump’s speech.
The compromise bill, in particular, is facing doubts from conservatives who are wary of voting for a more moderate bill that probably cannot pass the Senate intact and that they fear Trump may ultimately abandon.

Meanwhile, the moderate Republicans who have pushed their party leaders over the course of months to bring up immigration legislation are watching the process spin into another false start but held out hope the House would ultimately pass something.


“Obviously we’ve got some more work to do,” Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), a moderate who led the discharge effort, said Wednesday. “We’ve got other options. We will continue to reserve those options depending on how this plays out. We are not going to let this issue go.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.f96e3f60c799

Related:

Livid Rep. Mark Meadows yells at Speaker Paul Ryan on House floor

https://www.alipac.us/f12/livid-rep-...-floor-359769/

This is our key to beating this bill Thursday!!!

Jake Sherman

@JakeSherman


·
Mark Meadows and Paul Ryan are in a very heated discussion in the middle of the house floor.

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Jake Sherman



@JakeSherman


Meadows is furious. Just walked over to his members — the freedom caucus — and signaled that he was done. I’m not sure what they’re pissed about — ask @MEPFuller — but I would expect fireworks tomorrow.


************



Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman


·
Now Meadows and Goodlatte are chatting. Meadows seems furious. He’s coming back to talk to Ryan with some people in tow


***************


Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman


Allegedly conservatives believe the wrong version of goodlatte’s bill is being brought up



***************


Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman


Meadows now having his hand toward Paul Ryan, angrily talking to his chief of staff Jonathan burka“I don’t care anymore,” Meadows tells Ryan. Curbelo standing by. Meadows tells curbelo: “I’ll sign the dang discharge petition. I don’t care anymore.”


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Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman



Meadows and Ryan in each other’s faces. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Meadows tells Ryan. Wow.
4:20 PM · Jun 20, 2018


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Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman




Replying to @JakeSherman


Meadows — glasses perched on his nose — is furious. Talking to his allies Jordan and Hice.

************


Jake Sherman



@JakeSherman


The dynamic unusually is the freedom caucus feels like they’ve been misled, leadership believes they’ve misled them. And we go round and roundAnd the House is ungovernable.


**************
Jake Sherman


@JakeSherman


Based on what I just saw, I don’t believe the house will pass the immigration bills tomorrow.

FIREWORKS! Rep Mark Meadows Gets in Speaker Paul Ryan’s Face Over Immigration Bill (VIDEO)



House Speaker Paul Ryan; Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows

Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) got right up in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s face on the House floor Wednesday over a proposed immigration bill.

Via Senate reporter for Fox News, Chad Pergram:
Pergram tweeted: “Freedom Caucus Chair Meadows gets up in the grill of Ryan on the Hse flor in the middle of the vote series. Rare to have a mbr take on another mbr, let alone a Spkr like that.”

Freedom Caucus Chair Meadows gets up in the grill of Ryan on the Hse flor in the middle of the vote series. Rare to have a mbr take on another mbr, let alone a Spkr like that.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 20, 2018

Pergram also reported: Meadows says he had it out with the Spkr on the flr because no one is completely sure what immigration bills they are voting on tomorrow. “There are multiple things in the text which do not match the talking pts.” Meadows says he was “passionately advocating” for his position

Meadows says he had it out with the Spkr on the flr because no one is completely sure what immigration bills they are voting on tomorrow. “There are multiple things in the text which do not match the talking pts.” Meadows says he was “passionately advocating” for his position

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 20, 2018

Some GOPers were “disturbed” over the heated exchanged, reported Chad Pergram.

Multiple GOPers mbrs tell Fox they were disturbed by the rhubarb on the House flr where Meadows got in the face of Ryan over the immigration bills. One source said the were a few “hard yes’s” who were now “squirming” after they saw the confrontation between Ryan/Meadows

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 20, 2018

Confusion about precisely what bills the House will consider on immigration tomorrow caused the argument between Paul Ryan and Mark Meadows, reported Chad Pergram.

There was significant confusion about precisely WHAT bills the House will consider on immigration tomorrow. That’s part of what sparked a nasty rhubarb on the House floor between House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC).
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 20, 2018

C-SPAN Video of the exchange: (Look at the NV column area of the screen)

WATCH: (Clip 1/2) Exchange between @SpeakerRyan and Rep. Mark Meadows on the House Floor. (Look at NV column area of screen).
Note: C-SPAN doesn’t control cameras/audio in House chamber. (h/t @Jakesherman) pic.twitter.com/WrtoLEfg4u
— Jeremy Art (@cspanJeremy) June 20, 2018

(VIDEOS of Clash between Mark Meadows and Speaker Paul Ryan)

https://mobile.twitter.com/cspanJere...128512/video/1

https://mobile.twitter.com/cspanJere...524097/video/1


VIDEO #2 of the exchange:

WATCH: (Clip 2/2) Exchange between @SpeakerRyan and Rep. Mark Meadows on the House Floor. (Look at NV column area of screen).
Note: C-SPAN doesn’t control cameras/audio in House chamber. (h/t @Jakesherman) pic.twitter.com/leOsUZUcTn
— Jeremy Art (@cspanJeremy) June 20, 2018

Politico reporter, Jake Sherman has more details on the fiery exchange between Rep. Meadows and Speaker Paul Ryan.
Mark Meadows and Paul Ryan are in a very heated discussion:

����
Mark Meadows and Paul Ryan are in a very heated discussion in the middle of the house floor.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

Meadows is furious. Just walked over to his members — the freedom caucus — and signaled that he was done.

I’m not sure what they’re pissed about — ask @MEPFuller — but I would expect fireworks tomorrow.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

Now Meadows and Goodlatte are chatting. Meadows seems furious.

He’s coming back to talk to Ryan with some people in tow
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

Meadows now having his hand toward Paul Ryan, angrily talking to his chief of staff Jonathan burka
“I don’t care anymore,” Meadows tells Ryan.
Curbelo standing by.
Meadows tells curbelo: “I’ll sign the dang discharge petition. I don’t care anymore.”
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

Meadows and Paul Ryan in each other’s faces!

Meadows and Ryan in each other’s faces. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Meadows tells Ryan.
Wow.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

Meadows — glasses perched on his nose — is furious. Talking to his allies Jordan and Hice.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 20, 2018

It’s as if the 2016 election never happened.

Speaker Paul Ryan will allow votes this week on immigrationincluding amnesty for illegal immigrant Dreamers.

Speaker Paul Ryan promised to pass amnesty for illegals in February.
Ryan also promised to pass amnesty back in September 2017.

President Trump promised Democrats amnesty for up to 3 million illegals if they would agree to build a border wall.
Democrats refused the deal.

So now pro-amnesty Republicans are determined to give Democrats what they want anyway.

These politicians are working against the American people.

Mark Meadows Throws Down on Paul Ryan in Heated Immigration House Floor Exchange: ‘I’m Done’






June 20, 2018

Matthew Boyle



House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) lambasted House Speaker Paul Ryan in a heated exchange over immigration on Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives, captured partially on C-SPAN but in view of the whole House and onlookers from the gallery above.




Meadows and Ryan both had their fingers in each other’s faces, and Meadows repeatedly reportedly shouted at Ryan that it “doesn’t matter anymore” and “I’m done.”




It appears now that Paul Ryan’s amnesty plan is in serious danger of not having enough votes for congressional passage.


It seems, based upon media reports, that Ryan and his leadership team lied to House GOP members and the president about what is in the bills being voted on Thursday.


Meadows, who led the way in removing Ryan’s predecessor, now former Speaker John Boehner, has reportedly never been this angry at Ryan. Ryan may want to be careful, because his office has repeatedly not answered whether he has the votes to win re-election as Speaker should a Republican member–or a Democrat–call a motion to vacate the chair and remove Ryan from the Speakership now.


Ryan is planning to retire at the end of this Congress, serving out the rest of the year as a lame duck. But he is losing more and more support from Republicans across the conference, as some like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) have already called for him to be removed now. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) revealed recently that members are discussing removing Ryan by force if necessary. The best part of this Meadows-Ryan dispute is that C-SPAN cameras captured most of it:


(Tweets, other at Link)



http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...hange-im-done/

REMOVE RYAN AND GET JIM JORDAN AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!

McCARTHY IS A RHINO FOR AMNESTY! DO NOT LISTEN TO McCARTHY PRESIDENT TRUMP!

Ryan, Goodlatte, & Trump Pull Triple Bait and Switch On Amnesty Bills

For National Release | June 21, 2018

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TAKE ACTION AND CALL CONGRESS TO OPPOSE THESE AMNESTY BILLS BEFORE THEY VOTE TODAY AT....
https://www.alipac.us/f8/key-destroying-amnesty-bill-emerges-final-hours-359809/