Obama goes into overdrive on trade push
President Barack Obama has begun to barrage House Democrats with phone calls in hopes of explaining to members of his own party why they should break their near uniform opposition and support his trade agenda.
House Republicans, meanwhile, are feeling newfound optimism that at least 190 of their lawmakers will support so-called trade promotion authority giving the president power to fast-track free-trade agreements. That would mean roughly 27 Democrats would need to support the legislation in order to hand Obama his largest legislative victory in years. Eighteen Democrats are currently on record backing the bill.
It’s now up to Obama to flip the rest.
Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Majority Whip Steve Scalise and Chief Deputy Whip Patrick McHenry will meet with undecided Republicans this week to press them to vote yes. A significant number of GOP lawmakers are holding out and will commit to no one other than Boehner and McCarthy. They want to convey to the top two leaders how tough of a vote this is.