“Yesterday was a microcosm of how Democrats have governed. We both held him accountable and delivered a massively important generational trade bill,” a senior Democratic aide told me Wednesday. “Essentially, you have one day that represents everything that we stand for.”
By striking a trade deal with Trump—in which Democrats argued they secured wins on labor and environmental protections and concessions from Big Pharma—they also rob him of a favored critique. “There’s anxiety with Midwestern members that we can’t get outflanked on trade again,” the senior Democratic congressional aide who praised Pelosi’s vote-counting ability told me. “The thinking is you take away one of his biggest talking points in those communities.”
Pelosi’s plot didn’t stop there. On Wednesday, the House easily passed the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with a vote of 377 to 48, which Trump is expected to sign. And after spending Tuesday locked in negotiations with Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal, the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pelosi managed to fend off a revolt from the left on a sweeping drug-pricing bill. On Thursday, the bill passed the House by a 230 to 192 margin, with 228 Democrats voting in support, though it is seen as dead on arrival in the Senate. Again, the Speaker’s message to constituents: The “Do Nothing Dems” did something.
Even the narrow scope of the articles of impeachment was, in part, tailored to Democrats who face the toughest reelection odds in 2020. Ahead of Tuesday, there was discussion within the caucus over what the articles would entail. Would they encompass all the president’s malfeasance, including the behaviors detailed in Robert Mueller’s report? Or hew tightly to Ukraine, the scandal that moved Pelosi and the impeachment holdouts off the sidelines? With the two—abuse of power and obstruction of Congress—the case is simple: Impeachment is about Ukraine, national security, and the integrity of future elections, not re-litigating 2016.
“I think the Speaker has always been reflecting the consensus of the caucus. I mean, she really has. She does a lot of listening. She is always encouraging people to be thinking about these issues, to be very deliberative, to study the evidence, to listen to their constituents,” which was how Representative David Cicilline explained the deliberations to me last week. “I think she is always kind of checking in to see where people are on this.”
Indeed, Pelosi’s chess mastery has come at the expense of progressives. Of the four dozen lawmakers who voted against the NDAA, many were progressives, with a total of 41 Democrats casting “no” votes. And while Jayapal and Pocan managed to secure a number of concessions and amendments from Pelosi, the drug pricing bill (HR3) did not represent significant changes to the package she crafted. Notably, the final product doesn’t address the uninsured. By Tuesday night, however, the caucus had signaled it would support the legislation. “I think you are going to see progressives voting against a lot of these major bills, and I think you are going to see the people who won the House be the ones who…push most of these to the point that they are,” the aide to a moderate Democrat told me. “At the end of the day, it is the majority makers who have been driving the issues that have come to the floor, that have been helping frame these debates on these issues and these bills to the extent that they are,” a congressional staffer to a moderate Democrat told me. “I don’t think that is on accident, and I think that is a testament to leadership.”
Thus far, progressives, understanding the stakes, have kept their annoyance to a low buzz—but with impeachment in the rearview mirror, compromise is likely to be more difficult. “Pelosi is playing this all very well to protect those in purple districts,” said the progressive staffer, “at the expense of losing support from progressives.”