Republicans’ Summer Challenge: Selling the Big, Beautiful Spending Bill to Voters

Longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin gave a frank piece of advice to the president before he was sworn in: Prioritize tax-cut legislation and avoid a repeat of the first few months of his first term, when congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“We need to get the tax cuts passed first and not do what you did in 2017 where we waited,” McLaughlin recalls telling the president earlier this year, laying blame on then-Speaker Paul Ryan and then-Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell for pushing health care reform eight years ago before that year’s tax-cut bill. “Because if we don’t have a growing economy, we could lose Congress, and if we lose Congress, we get impeached.”

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Audrey Fahlberg

Audrey Fahlberg was a politics reporter for National Review.

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Longtime Trump pollster John McLaughlin gave a frank piece of advice to the president before he was sworn in: Prioritize tax-cut legislation and avoid a repeat of the first few months of his first term, when congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“We need to get the tax cuts passed first and not do what you did in 2017 where we waited,” McLaughlin recalls telling the president earlier this year, laying blame on then-Speaker Paul Ryan and then-Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell for pushing health care reform eight years ago before that year’s tax-cut bill. “Because if we don’t have a growing economy, we could lose Congress, and if we lose Congress, we get impeached.”