With Freedom Caucus dig, Trump masters the media … again

President Trump’s decision to take to Twitter and digitally bludgeon the House Freedom Caucus earlier today was a mistake on numerous levels — but also a clever move in one lone respect.

Let’s discuss first the way in which the tweet was a walking, talking presidential “d’oh!”

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

No matter how irritated Trump may be about Freedom Caucus members partaking in torpedoing the American Health Care Act (AHCA) — a good chunk of what motivated the tweet — the bill was an unquestionably bad one. Congressional conservatives’ criticisms of it as ObamaCare-repeal-in-name-only were entirely valid.

{mosads}Set aside what it would, or would not, have done in terms of maintaining or expanding the insured population; the AHCA would not have addressed core concerns like premium pricing or high deductibles to a significant (enough) extent for one simple reason: As Sen. Ted Cruz has noted, the AHCA proposed to eliminate only a minuscule number of ObamaCare’s 12 insurance mandates.

Some of the more problematic ones in terms of their interrelation with insurance costs are guaranteed issue, including the provision allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance and, less noticed, ObamaCare’s ban on benefit caps, which was on actuaries’ and reinsurance experts’ radar as a problematic policy long before Trump’s election.

The AHCA kept all of these in place, something that was, perhaps, politically smart, but was also policy-dumb — at least as viewed through a conservative lens. Trump’s tweet attacking the House Freedom Caucus serves to underline that he’s not policy-savvy, nor is he conservative where healthcare is concerned. But, even more than that, it reveals he’s willing to target members of his own party who are both of those things. It’s a good way of reinforcing the firm conclusion some House conservatives have already reached: Trump is not one of them, and their sole area of mutual interest is rhetorical railing against the establishment.

That’s not a useful footing with contentious tax reform and infrastructure proposals coming down the pike.  The tweet’s apparent reversal of Trump’s prior stated interest in working with Democrats also is unhelpful in terms of the president actually governing, though his now-frosty relationship with Sen. Chuck Schumer probably made real Trump-Democratic collaboration a non-starter anyway.

Whichever way you cut it, with tweets like these, Trump seems for the moment to be making his own job harder, not easier.

But, as noted, there is one respect in which Trump’s tweet was a clever move.

Check out the timing of the tweet, and ask “what else was happening in Washington right as he pushed the button?” The simple answer: A Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on Russia was shortly set to get underway.

LIVE COVERAGE: Dem senator urges Intel committee to “follow the money” to assess Trump’s ties to Russia https://t.co/7CsiU2tXpR pic.twitter.com/20IiLx3IGQ

— The Hill (@thehill) March 30, 2017

Trump may be making his ability to pass legislation tougher by picking this fight, but in sending out a single tweet, he managed to instantly divert the attention of at least 50 percent of reporters who could be expected to focus like a laser on that hearing with just 140 or fewer characters. And let’s be clear: What comes out of investigations into Team Trump and Russia has much greater capacity to make or break Trump’s presidency, personal reputation and more, than any healthcare reform bill that anyone will conjure up.

Trump knew that tweeting what he did would work like a dream. Even as we speak, a decent chunk of the media is getting played again, as they seem prone to do with this particular president.

Trump doesn’t know how to get things done in Washington, D.C. It’s questionable how much he’s trying to learn. But he knows how to grab the press’ attention and keep it, even if it’s by intentionally publicly doing something that looks like tripping over his you-know-what.

Political media loves a circus, and Trump is great at putting on a show that has him prodding the elephants, nearly being eaten by the lions, and being shrieked at by the monkeys. That’s where this morning’s tweet was clever — though it will probably have the effect of causing the sticklers over things like benefit caps and guaranteed issue to dig their heels in harder just as Democrats continue to say “no, thanks.”

Liz Mair is the President of Mair Strategies LLC and a former adviser to Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina. In 2008, she was the RNC’s Online Communications Director. Her firm worked in opposition to the AHCA, including on grounds raised by Cruz and Freedom Caucus members. Follow her on Twitter at @LizMair.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.