Trump: Relationship with McConnell is ‘outstanding’

President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put on a show of unity Monday, an effort to paper over longstanding tensions over their stalled legislative agenda. 

After lunching with McConnell, Trump staged an impromptu news conference in the White House Rose Garden where he declared the Senate GOP leader has been a “friend of mine for a long time” and that they are “fighting for the same thing.”

“We are probably now, I think — as least as far as I’m concerned — closer than ever before,” Trump told reporters. 

{mosads}Trump said they are both “working very hard” to overhaul the nation’s tax code and said they “getting close” on a health-care bill. 

McConnell stood at Trump’s side, expressionless and listening intently as the president spoke. Afterward, he took the lectern to say that he and Trump “have the same agenda” and that they have “been friends and acquaintances for a long time.”

“What the president and I would both like to say to you today, contrary to what some of you may have reported, we are together totally on this agenda to move America forward,” the Kentucky Republican said. 

After the news conference was over, Trump extended an arm to McConnell to help him climb the stairs back to the Oval Office.

Both men were pushing back on the notion their strained relationship is putting the GOP agenda in peril. 

The tensions reached a boiling point this summer, when Trump raised the possibility McConnell should step down if he cannot deliver on his legislative agenda. 

That came after the Kentucky senator groused publicly about Trump’s “excessive expectations” about passing major bills.

Those concerns were reignited over the weekend, when former Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon announced he would back primary challengers against Senate Republicans who do not support the president. 

A number of GOP senators, most notably Bob Corker (Tenn.) have criticized Trump in increasingly tough terms. 

Trump and McConnell’s appearance was an acknowledgment that moving past the tensions is in both of their best interests ahead of a crucial fall stretch in Congress. 

Lawmakers must approve a budget to unlock special rules allowing the Senate to pass tax reform with a simple majority. They also face a December deadline to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. 

The president said Bannon is doing what he “thinks is the right thing” but insisted he would try to “talk him out” of seeking challenges to at least some incumbent Republicans. 

It was a dizzying about-face for Trump, who just hours earlier voiced sympathy for Bannon’s self-proclaimed “war” against the Republican establishment. 

“I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest. They are not getting the job done,” Trump said of GOP senators, adding there are some “frankly that should be ashamed of themselves.”

McConnell spoke more emphatically against Bannon’s efforts, swiping at past GOP primary winners who lost in the general election because they were too radical. 

“Winners make policy, and losers go home,” he said. 

The 39-minute press conference was intended as a photo-op for Trump and McConnell, but quickly evolved into a raucous back-and-forth with the media over the news of the day. 

Trump raised eyebrows when he claimed that former President Obama and other past presidents did not call the families of fallen soldiers. 

Reporters, standing on cool, damp grass in the Rose Garden in unusually close proximity to the president, shouted questions about why he had not spoken about four U.S. soldiers who had been killed in Niger.  

“So the traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it,” Trump responded. 

Former aides to Obama vehemently denied that was the case.

The president fielded questions about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation (“I’d like to see it end”), reports his nominee for drug czar helped weaken crackdowns on illicit opioid distribution (“We’re going to look into the report”) and allegations of sexual harassment against him (“It’s totally fake news”). 

McConnell stood by the president’s side and stayed mostly silent with his hands in his pockets. He cracked a grin when the president took repeated jabs at his 2016 election opponent, Hillary Clinton. 

The top Senate Republican was stoic when reporters brought up Trump’s negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). GOP leaders were reportedly angered by Trump’s dealing with Schumer over government funding, the debt limit and immigration. 

Trump said he hopes to work with Schumer and his House counterpart, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), but added, “if we don’t, we don’t.”

The president hit them over one of McConnell biggest pet peeves: blocking GOP judicial nominations. 

“They’re not very good politicians, but they’re very good at obstruction,” he said. 

This story was updated at 3:56 p.m.