‘They can recommend what they want,’ but Trump is setting policy from position of strength

After the House Republican Study Committee released an election-year policy package last month proposing to raise the retirement age, John McLaughlin, a veteran pollster advising former President Donald Trump, said it was “not a good idea.”

The former president and presumptive GOP nominee, he told POLITICO, will be “the dominant voice in the Republican Party for what Republicans stand for.” Not down-ballot candidates floating suggestions at odds with Trump’s policies.

“They can recommend what they want,” he said. “But unless they convince him to change his position, it won't happen.”

Strategists in Trump’s orbit assert that he makes policy for the party — and see some of the positions being espoused by conservatives on Capitol Hill and elsewhere as politically toxic. But following a presidential primary in which Trump paid no price for bucking hard-line conservatives on two major policy issues — abortion and Social Security — they also believe he is navigating from a position of commanding political autonomy.

Trump is coming under increasing pressure to clarify what abortion restrictions he would support, particularly from anti-abortion advocates who are calling for national restrictions. Trump announced Tuesday that he will say more about the issue next week.

But Trump is the rare Republican who has been unscathed by deviating from GOP orthodoxy. Despite taking credit for installing the Supreme Court justices necessary to overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump has described the six-week abortion ban in Florida as a “terrible thing and a terrible mistake” and said states should decide their own laws. And besides seemingly entertaining the idea of Social Security cuts once earlier this year, he has otherwise stuck to his vow not to touch it or Medicare.

“He's just so clearly not a radical on both of these issues, that I think it helps shield a lot of Republicans down ticket who are more conservative on those issues,” said a GOP strategist with close ties to Trump’s orbit and granted anonymity to speak freely. “You can't honestly look at Donald Trump and say Trump is an extremist on abortion. No one being honest believes he is Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum on abortion."

President Joe Biden’s campaign has attacked Trump for paving the way for near-total abortion bans in a number of states. Immediately after a court ruling Monday allowing a six-week abortion law to take effect in Florida, the reelection campaign declared the state “Ground Zero for Trump’s MAGA Blueprint” and began airing advertisements against him on abortion. Biden advisers said they see Florida, which has become an increasingly red state, as “winnable” in November, when voters will now get to weigh in on a ballot referendum to ensure the right to an abortion up to 24 weeks.

The six-week ban soon to be in place — and the referendum that will keep abortion in the news for months — is a liability for Trump, who resides in Palm Beach and presumably will vote on the initiative. In a vague statement on Tuesday, Trump’s campaign said he “supports preserving life but has also made clear that he supports states' rights because he supports the voters' right to make decisions for themselves.”

But Trump’s past criticism of the state’s abortion law, which was backed by his former primary rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, could complicate efforts by Biden to attack him on it. Over the past two years, Trump has resisted calls by some within his party to embrace sweeping abortion restrictions after the fall of Roe.

And Trump in 2016 built a political brand in part on his promise to protect entitlement programs, a position that became more mainstream among Republicans during his time in office.

“Politically, it is the stupidest possible thing that you could put out, especially in an election year,” the strategist close to Trump’s operation said of House Republicans’ suggestion to raise the retirement age.

The strategist argued that the inevitable Democratic attacks will have a hard time sticking, given Trump’s brand on the issues.

“If it was Paul Ryan running, the Social Security stuff would be a lot more believable,” the strategist said. “If Mike Pence were running, the abortion stuff would be, too. But it’s Donald Trump running, and he’s been pretty steadfast about not being on the far right on either of these issues.”

And in a presidential election year, when the GOP is trying to preserve its razor-thin House majority and recapture the Senate, the Trump-aligned strategist added, “this is where Trump actually helps Republicans.”

Trump, for his part, withstood media scrutiny for months during the GOP presidential primary over his refusal to support a federal abortion law. Many of his opponents, including DeSantis, Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and, eventually, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, pledged to sign 15-week national bans if elected. Trump’s refusal to do so stood at odds with prominent anti-abortion advocacy groups, though Trump cruised to the GOP nomination without any perceivable slip in support among evangelicals and social conservatives.

Trump more recently signaled an openness to supporting a 15-week abortion law in Congress, while emphasizing that there must be exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of a pregnant person.

But he has stopped short of endorsing any such ban, and some advisers close to him in the days since suggested Trump’s embrace of that type of measure is hardly a done deal.

“I think if you asked him now, he would say he agrees with allowing states to decide,” said Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law and current co-chair of the Republican National Committee, in an interview last week with NBC.

Dave Carney, a longtime Republican strategist on both presidential and down-ballot races, said he appreciates GOP policy experts trying to tackle the issue of entitlement program insolvency — but would be “shocked if it’s in the actual legislative budget” this coming year.

“This has gone on forever, you have eggheads sitting around, trying to come up with ideas that get the conversation started or continued,” Carney said. He noted a policy platform released during the 2022 midterms by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), then the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, that included raising taxes, among other proposals.

“From a candidate point of view, do you want to be dealing with this? No,” Carney said. “But it does give you a chance to say you don't support it.”

“There’s no congressional member running for reelection in any even slightly competitive race who is going to be talking about those things, other than saying ‘I'm not for it,’” Carney continued. “If it gets too annoying for Trump, I'm sure he’ll put his 2 cents in and crush it.”