9/22/2017 Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care - The New York
h Care - The New York Times
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POLITICS
Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New
Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG SEPT. 20, 2017
WASHINGTON When Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader,
introduced Chuck Schumer to members of her caucus this month, she warmed up
the room with a well-worn joke about her Senate counterpart: You know they say
the most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck and a camera.
Mr. Schumers love of the spotlight aside, it has been behind the scenes where
Chuck and Nancy, as President Trump calls them, have forged what may be the
most surprisingly potent partnership in Mr. Trumps Washington.
In a city where they hold no formal reins of power, the two are helping to set the
agenda on Capitol Hill. They cut a fiscal deal with Mr. Trump, then reached a
tentative agreement to protect young immigrants in the country illegally from
deportation.
Now they face a tougher test: Killing the latest Republican effort to repeal the
Affordable Care Act and persuading the mercurial president to work with them to
shore up shaky health insurance markets.
This is really a stinkeroo, Ms. Pelosi said Wednesday, referring to the repeal
measure drafted by Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of
Louisiana. I hope that when this is defeated, and hopefully that will be soon, the
president will agree to going forward in a bipartisan way.
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9/22/2017 Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care - The New York Times
It will not be easy. Mr. Trump is pressing Congress to adopt the health care
legislation, which would cut deeply into Medicaid and dismantle the programs and
prescriptions of the Affordable Care Act.
But if the bill can be stopped, the Democratic leaders have already begun
nudging the president toward another about-face: setting aside the mantra of repeal
and replace and adopting modest measures to make his predecessors signature
domestic achievement work better.
During a recent White House dinner, the pair pushed Mr. Trump to make
permanent the subsidies, known as cost-sharing reductions, paid to insurers under
the health law to help low-income customers pay for out-of-pocket health expenses
like co-payments and deductibles. Mr. Trump has threatened to end such payments,
raising uncertainty in insurance markets and increasing premiums for 2018.
In separate interviews, both leaders said that the president was noncommittal
and that their future dealings with him would depend on whether he followed
through on his pledge to protect young undocumented immigrants brought here as
children beneficiaries of the Obama-era program Mr. Trump is winding down,
known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Whether he pivots or not will be one of the most fundamental questions of this
administration, Mr. Schumer said. Its the $64,000 question. The only way it can
happen is if we have a successful negotiation on DACA, and secondly whether we get
health care.
In some respects, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer are an unlikely pair. She
represents San Francisco and for years has been the subject of harsh attacks from
Republicans, who caricature her as affluent, elitist and permissive. He is from
Brooklyn and far more attuned to the needs of big business and Wall Street. She is
button-down and always on message at least in public. (In private, she calls Mr.
Schumer Chuckles.) He is more freewheeling and off the cuff.
When she was House speaker, her real Senate partner was the majority leader at
the time, Harry Reid, with whom she helped pass some of the biggest legislative
achievements of a generation: the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
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9/22/2017 Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care - The New York Times
regulatory law, the 2009 economic stimulus and President George W. Bushs Wall
Street rescue.
But Ms. Pelosis former chief of staff, John Lawrence, said what while she and
Mr. Reid worked well together, I dont have the sense it was the same instinctual
harmonic relationship that she has with Chuck.
Ms. Pelosi said she and Mr. Schumer know each other so well that we speak in
shorthand to each other.
Ms. Pelosi said she and Mr. Schumer were still assessing whether they could
trust Mr. Trump. We will trust each other as long as we can, she said, adding, Its
one issue at a time.
Meanwhile, some Democrats are watching with a skeptical eye.
I hope and pray that Pelosi and Schumer are more sophisticated and smarter
than everyone else thats been duped by Donald Trump, said Representative Luis V.
Gutirrez, Democrat of Illinois, after the Democratic leaders announced their
tentative deal with Mr. Trump to pursue legislation allowing the young immigrants
known as Dreamers to stay in the United States.
Others see cause for optimism. Several Democratic senators, including Heidi
Heitkamp of North Dakota and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said they could
foresee Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer reaching an agreement with Mr. Trump on
legislation to repair the nations crumbling infrastructure, an interest of all three of
them.
Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, went
one step further, suggesting possible bipartisan cooperation on the budget.
I think its encouraging; some people dont, Mr. Durbin said. But look what
we achieved with the first level of agreement. Without delay, without debate, without
histrionics, we sent Hurricane Harvey relief out, we didnt close down the
government, and we extended the debt ceiling of the United States on a bipartisan
basis. Pretty good work.
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9/22/2017 Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care - The New York Times
In working with a president so despised by Democratic voters, especially those
on the far left, the two Democrats must tread carefully. Ms. Pelosi got a taste of that
this week in San Francisco, when she was shouted down by protesters during a news
conference where she had intended to talk about the Dream Act, legislation to offer
legal status and a path to citizenship for young unauthorized immigrants brought to
the United States as children.
But some Democratic strategists say the leaders have little to lose.
I think they are in position to make deals that are good for Democratic
priorities and that have the support of the Democratic caucus, said Geoff Garin, Mr.
Schumers pollster. And if the deals dont do those things, then its easy for them to
walk away.
Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer were both traveling with their families on separate
vacations in Italy this summer when, each said, they began to strategize on how to
use a looming fight over the debt ceiling as leverage to negotiate with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Schumer said he proposed urging the White House to extend the debt ceiling for
three months, which would force a vote again in December, giving the Democrats
leverage over other agenda items. Ms. Pelosi, he said, quickly agreed.
We were in sync, Ms. Pelosi said. The debt ceiling deal opened the door to the
White House dinner, where the two leaders raised the issue of the young
immigrants. Ms. Pelosi said it was important for the president to hear that Mr.
Schumer who became minority leader just this year was as committed to their
fate as she was.
Thats the beauty of it, she said. Im the usual suspect, and hes the new
leader coming in.
The Pelosi-Schumer relationship dates to 1987, when Ms. Pelosi, a former
chairwoman of the California Democratic Party, was a newly elected
congresswoman. Her fellow Californian, Representative George Miller who was
then Mr. Schumers landlord and roommate invited her to a dinner at an Italian
restaurant near the Capitol. A collection of House members, including Mr. Schumer,
gathered there each Tuesday night to bat around policy ideas.
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9/22/2017 Chuck and Nancy, Washingtons New Power Couple, Set Sights on Health Care - The New York Times
Mr. Miller gave Ms. Pelosi an auspicious introduction: Youre going to meet
Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Schumer recalls him saying. Shes going to become the first
woman speaker.
Mr. Miller was proved correct 20 years later.
The relationship is longtime, said Mr. Miller, who retired from the House in
2015. Theyve had their spats, theyve had their agreements, theyve had their
strategies become successful and theyve had their strategies fall flat on their face,
and thats why this is working.
They have not always seen eye to eye. In 2014, Ms. Pelosi publicly criticized Mr.
Schumer when he said it was a tactical mistake for Democrats to have put a health
care overhaul on the top of their agenda in 2009 after Barack Obama was elected
president. Many analysts believe public anger over the Affordable Care Act cost
Democrats control of the House in 2010.
We come here to do a job, not keep a job, Ms. Pelosi said then. In a reference
to those who gained insurance under the bill, she added, There are more than 14
million reasons why thats wrong.
A version of this article appears in print on September 21, 2017, on Page A17 of the New York edition
with the headline: Power Couple Emerges For Party Out of Power; Next Test Is Health Law.
2017 The New York Times Company
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