Politics

Meadows gives Trump an A-plus

By Bill Moss, Published: April 11, 2017

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows says he judges President Trump not on what Congress has managed to pass — or not pass — in the first 82 days in office. Despite a goose egg so far on major legislation, Trump gets a glowing report card from the third-term Republican.

“I’d give him an A or A-plus,” Meadows told WHKP newsman Larry Freeman in a radio interview Tuesday morning.
Meadows knows Trump well. He was an early and steadfast supporter of Trump during the campaign and as chairman of the powerful House Freedom Caucus has spent hours in the White House negotiating an Obamacare repeal and replacement. Trump’s stamina is impressive, Meadows said.
“He’s wearing me out,” he said.
Criticism of the president's frequent rounds of golf in Palm Beach, Meadows said, fails to take into account that Trump is working between shots.
“Everything he does is with a strategic purpose in mind,” Meadows said. “He’s one of the only presidents who took a step backward from his personal plane onto Air Force One. He’s been very successful.”
As for the concerns expressed by Hendersonville area voters, Meadows said health care tops the list.
“The No. 1 thing still is with the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “We continue to get calls both in favor of the Affordable Care Act and wanting to repeal. We’re actually trying to take very detailed notes on that. The other is veterans and their benefits. We haven’t finished that (reform of the V.A. benefits) but I do know that it’s a priority for the president.”
Military spending will be up by $54 billion in the budget Congress enacts, he added, and “it could potentially be higher than that.”

Meadows said while the missile attack on a Syrian air base was a justified use of force in response to a chemical attack that killed civilians, he was hearing a clear message from the 11th Congressional District that "they don't want to go to war" and send American troops into the volatile Middle East.
Meadows was in Hendersonville all day on Tuesday, visiting a civics class at East Henderson High School, touring the Selee plant and meeting with Sheriff Charlie McDonald and others on opioid abuse.