And, while Mr. Trump and the few dozen members of the Freedom Caucus may share the anti-establishment mantle, the caucus has yet to forge a relationship with the president-elect, potentially squandering an opportunity to help shape the party’s agenda. In assembling his presidential transition team, Mr. Trump has, so far, turned instead to less hard-line members of Congress.
The earliest and most ardent backers of Mr. Trump, like Representatives Chris Collins and Lee Zeldin of New York, and Tom Marino and Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania, are not Freedom Caucus members. They come from the kind of Rust Belt districts that buoyed Mr. Trump to victory last week…
Ideologically, Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters in Congress break with the Freedom Caucus in important policy areas. They are expected to rally to the president-elect’s call for increased spending on infrastructure, even if it is not paid for with equal cuts elsewhere in the budget. Above all, they vehemently oppose free trade, an issue that divides the Freedom Caucus.
Representative Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican who is the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, dismissed the notion that the election may have rendered his group obsolete.
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