So much for a “united” front.
Hours after the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw cold water on reports that the leaders had a tense relationship, President Donald Trump again criticized the Kentucky Republican on Twitter. On Thursday morning, he hit McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan for what he called their reluctance to make it easier to raise the debt ceiling.
He contended that raising the United States’ borrowing limit “could have been so easy” but is “now a mess!”
McConnell on Monday said “there is zero chance” that the government fails to raise the debt ceiling. The U.S. needs to do so before the end of September to avoid defaulting on its debt.
Trump’s tweets comes a day after both the White House and McConnell downplayed concerns about a reportedly deteriorating relationship between the the president and Senate leader. In a statement Wednesday, the White House said they “remain united on many shared priorities.”
McConnell said in a Wednesday statement that he, Trump and both of their teams “have been and continue to be in regular contact about our shared goals.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are committed to advancing our shared agenda together and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation,” the senator said.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Republican senators like Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He has also urged the Senate to change its rules and publicly chided McConnell for failing to pass an Obamacare repeal bill.
Those behaviors have reportedly irked McConnell.
A New York Times report Tuesday described the president’s deteriorating relationship with the GOP Senate leader in great detail. Trump and McConnell have not spoken in weeks, and the senator privately has been skeptical about whether Trump “will be able to salvage his administration,” the Times reported.