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Senator Rand Paul and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney joined the president at Trump National Golf Club outside of Washington.

The trio were "discussing a variety of topics, including health care," said White House Deputy Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.

The outing came hours after Trump tweeted that talks to rework the nation's health care law were still underway.

"Anybody (especially Fake News media) who thinks that Repeal & Replace of ObamaCare is dead does not know the love and strength in R Party!" Trump tweeted early on Sunday.

"Talk on Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare are, and have been, going on, and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck," he added in a second message.

Republican-led efforts to replace Obama's health care law were thrown into disarray 10 days ago after Republican leaders in the House of Representative had to withdraw their own legislation ahead of a vote due to insufficient support from conservative and moderate members of their own party.

Trump had worked toward the bill's passage, but Paul had been a prominent critic and had aligned himself with the conservative House Freedom Caucus, a group that helped torpedoTrump's first major legislative effort.

On Thursday, Trump had threatened to defeat members of the group in next year's congressional elections if they continued to defy him.

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Trump talks health care with Republican critic on golf course - Daily Republic

A Colorado state senator will challenge Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) in the 2018 Republican primary.

Owen Hill, a Republican from Colorado Springs, toldThe Colorado Statesmanon Thursday that he will try to wrestle the Republican nomination from Lamborn.

We are not getting the representation we need, we are not getting the leadership we need, and so more and more people are saying we need a different option, Hill told theColoradoPolitics.com.

A spokesman for Lamborns campaign told the website that the congressman looks forward to earning his constituents votes again.

This is a free country and people are welcome to run for any office they wish, spokesman Jarred Rego told the website. Congressman Lamborn trusts the wisdom of the Republican primary voters in the 5th Congressional District. On average, over his time in Congress, they have decided to re-nominate him with 65 percent of the vote. He looks forward to working hard to earn their votes once again.

Lamborn has served in Congress since 2007.

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Colorado Republican getting primary challenge - The Hill

Jared Smith, president of the College Republicans, talks about listening to each other. JEAN COWDEN MOORE/THE STAR

Jared Smith, who is president of the College Republicans at CLU, asks a couple of students some questions about prominent Republican women during an International Women's Day celebration. He admits being a Republican on a college campus isn't always easy, but said diplomacy and collaboration help everyone.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)Buy Photo

It's not always easy being a Republican on a college campus these days, but Jared Smith understands what it takes diplomacy and collaboration, precisely the skills he used to be named an outstanding delegate at a recent Model United Nations summit on terrorism.

Smith, 21, a senior at California Lutheran University, has been president of the College Republicans for almost three years. He's alsotreasurer of the recently formed CLU Political Union, which organizes forums where peopleacross the political spectrum can debate issues in an open but civil environment.

So Smith understands how far listening and considering others' views can take you, both on campus and on the national stage.

"We all want the same thing," Smith said. "We all want a better America. We just tend to disagree on how to do it and what the better America is."

As a young Republican, Smith sees a country increasingly divided, where people areless willing to listen to others' viewpoints than perhaps they were in the past. Instead,we tend to read or listen to news that supports our existing political views, further entrenching ourselves on one side or the other, he said.

"If we're going to be able to compromise and work together as individuals, we have to find common ground. And to find common ground, we need to understand what the other side thinks. We have to challenge our views constantly."

Smith believes we'd be better off if westarted learning more about others' views. That's what he does, checking the Huffington Post and going to MSNBC, as well as reading the Wall Street Journal and the Economist.

"If we're going to be able to compromise and work together as individuals, we have to find common ground," he said. "And to find common ground, we need to understand what the other side thinks. We have to challenge our views constantly."

That attitude exemplifies an approach everyone, young or old, coulduse in today's political climate, said Jose Marichal, a political science professor and Smith's academic adviser.

"He's a model, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, for how we're supposed to engage in dialogue with our fellow citizens," Marichal said. "He's willing to hear the other side and is open to the possibility that his mind can be changed, that none of us own a monopoly on the truth."

Jared Smith, who is president of the College Republicans at CLU, yells out to some students to come to his booth to enter a raffle. He was among the students celebrating International Women's Day. At his table, he was asking questions about prominent Republican women and contributions the Republican Party has made toward women's rights. He believes it's necessary to talk and try to understand people who think differently than you do.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)

Indeed, Smith's own political views have evolved over the years.

He embraces what he sees as traditional Republican values: fiscal and personal responsibility, as well as individual liberty.

But he considers himselfcentral on social issues. He's become more liberal on LGBTQ issues, for example, and he believes it's our country's responsibility to accept more refugees. On the other hand, he's shifted more conservative financially.

How does he feel about President Donald Trump?

Well, he didn't vote for Trump. Smithworried about how the global community would perceive the American government under a Trump presidency. He also couldn't back what Trumpsaid about immigrants and Mexico.

Jared Smith, who is president of the College Republicans at CLU, folds the banner after celebrating International Women's Day.(Photo: JUAN CARLO/THE STAR)

"I couldn't bring myself to support someone who called our neighbors rapists," he said. "A lot of people come here because they were in a rough spot and saw this as the land of opportunity. It's important that America is that place to come to for the broken, the tired."

Nor could he endorse how Trump talked about women.

"I couldn't bring myself to support someone who could potentially see my mother that way, my sister that way," he said.

Smith ended up voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate he campaigned for.

But now that Trump is our president, Smithbelieves the country needs to support him.

"It's in our best interest if Donald Trump succeeds," he said. "We may be doubtful; we may be skeptical of his qualifications and his ability to lead on the world stage. But for every person saying Donald Trump should fail and ultimately be impeached, it's important to realize that would come at a great expense to the America, and that's not something that we want."

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Republican on campus? Try diplomacy, student says - Ventura County Star

It is the very political positions the Republican party used to gain power that render them divided, incapable of effectively solving the problems they were elected to address.

THE failure of Paul Ryan and the Republican House of Representatives to pass President Trumps health-care bill, his first piece of major legislation, has caused an avalanche of interpretations and explanations from mainstream commentators.

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion. Republicans are too divided ideologically to govern; they have been elected to tear down, not build; Trump knows nothing about governing; his advisers are either incompetent, inexperienced, or useless ideologues. The list goes on.

But I have read nothing about the most important of all reasons. The Republican House has before it an impossible task: In order to gain power and stay in office, the Republican party has been forced to use three broad strategies.

Got something to say about a topic in the news? Were looking for personal essays with strong opinions. Send your submission of no more than 500 words to oped@seattletimes.com with the subject line My Take.

Philip Cushman is a semiretired psychology professor from the California School of Professional Psychology and most recently from Antioch University Seattle. He has a private practice on Vashon Island.

One, it has exaggerated and twisted basic conservative concepts until they are out of touch with current political challenges. For instance, 19th-century ideas about the wisdom of the unregulated marketplace cannot begin to address the enormous and complex labor, health-care, tax-code, environmental and infrastructure needs of the 21st.

Two, they have had to mortgage their integrity to the very richest of Americans, who demand tax cuts and devious welfare-for-the-rich and deregulation deals that make any sort of rational and creative legislative response to difficult 21st century challenges impossible to craft.

Three, they have had to quietly and under cover of code words and stereotypes make common cause with the worst of American culture: racism and xenophobia.

These three strategies make for great political theater: nasty sloganeering, powerful advertising campaigns and vicious scapegoating. But winning an election through manipulation and bullying does not necessarily translate into good governance. And winning an election in simplistic, vicious, nefarious ways especially makes governance in a democracy difficult.

So it is the very political positions the Republican party used to gain power that render them divided, mean-spirited and incapable of effectively solving the problems they were elected to address. In the vernacular of the country and Western culture Republicans have exploited since Reagan, you dance with the one what brung ya.

Governing takes studying, reasoning, expertise and collaboration, which anti-intellectualism and the distrust of Washington cannot abide. It takes caring for others, and especially an attention to difference, poverty and oppression qualities that racism, misogyny and homophobia detest. It takes an adequate amount of federal funds, which can only be raised by a progressive tax structure, more like that which was used in the Eisenhower administration than the regressive tax policies of Republicans since the Reagan administration.

The Republican party is in the process of being gored by its own ox. It was a great beast to ride when the job was destruction. But the monster is not domesticated, and by definition it cannot live in the halls of Washington. If not subdued it will tear apart older political traditions and important recent policies that inched the country slightly closer to fulfilling its great promise. The one thing that would save the day is the one thing the Republican party is by design incapable of doing. Our ideals of diversity and fair governance indeed democracy itself hang in the balance.

Read more from the original source:
Three Republican strategies that have backfired - The Seattle Times

WASHINGTON Will anyone be left standing when the Republican circular firing squad runs out of ammunition? Or will everybody just reload and keep blasting away, leaving Democrats to clean up the bloody mess?

The political moment were living through is truly remarkable, but not in a good way. Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, so were basically in their hands. But they have nothing approaching consensus on what they should be doing and they have failed to show basic competence at doing much of anything.

This absurd situation was illustrated Thursday when House Speaker Paul Ryan, appearing on CBS This Morning, tried to explain why he wants to lead yet another suicide charge up Health Care Hill.

Ryan said he worries that if Republicans dont repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass some sort of replacement, then President Trump will just go work with Democrats to try and change Obamacare and thats not, thats hardly a conservative thing. ... If this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry well push the president into working with Democrats. Hes been suggesting that as much.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, usually a man of measured words, responded with a barbed tweet: We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem.

Trump went on Twitter as well, primarily to lash out at the House GOP conservatives who helped scuttle the slapdash American Health Care Act that Ryan tried and disastrously failed to ram through last week: The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they dont get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

But which Republican agenda? The House majority wants ideological purity of the kind found in Ayn Rand novels and the writings of obscure Austrian economists. The Senate majority favors traditional conservative policies and seeks self-preservation. Trump seeks adulation, a crown of laurels and the strewing of rose petals at his feet.

The House looks hopeless. Republicans hold 241 seats, a massive majority yet could not come close to mustering the 216 needed last week to approve the ill-fated health care bill. House Republicans passed about 60 measures to repeal all or part of Obamacare while Barack Obama was president but now, with a Republican in the White House, cant pass even one.

Ryan somehow acquired a reputation as a policy wonk but really is an ideologue, as shown by his comments Thursday. He worries less about whether policies work or not whether, in this case, more people have health insurance than whether policies fit his definition of conservative or not conservative. Also, he doesnt seem to be very good at counting votes, which is a clear requirement in the House speaker job description.

To be fair, he does have the problem of the Freedom Caucus a group of 30 to 40 House Republicans who are far to Ryans right, which puts them beyond the outer fringe. If politics were the solar system, they would be the Oort Cloud, out there past Pluto. It is hard to imagine any health care bill that is acceptable to both the Freedom Caucus and a majority of Americans.

The White House looks hopeless, too. Trumps inner circle is like the Court of the Borgias, full of intrigue and backstabbing. And there have been plenty of opportunities for rivals to wield their knives: Advisers Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, the economic nationalists, came under attack when Trumps first, amateurish attempt at a Muslim travel ban got blocked by the courts. Chief of staff Staff Reince Priebus like Ryan, part of the Cheesehead Mafia from Wisconsin bore much of the blame for the health care debacle. Economic adviser Gary Cohn and his staff are derided by others as the Democrats. Jared Kushner is fortunate to have the Teflon coating that comes from being the bosss son-in-law.

That leaves just two viable centers of power Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is nothing if not wily; and House Democrats under Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Its probably going to take Democratic votes to keep the government funded past April 28 and avoid a shutdown. Trumps only path forward on health care, a problem he now owns, may indeed be working with the Democrats. When I saw her at the Capitol this week, Pelosi was in a surprisingly good mood.

Eugene Robinson is a columnist for The Washington Post.

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Eugene Robinson: Republican muddle an opening for Democrats (Gazette) - Charleston Gazette-Mail (subscription)