GOP senators didn’t get any advance notice on several of Trump’s recent high-profile moves: his decision to rebrand the GOP “the party of health care” and his intention to nominate controversial partisan figures like Cain and Stephen Moore to serve on Federal Reserve Board.

McConnell had to tell Trump in a follow-up phone call on April 1 that Senate Republicans did not intend to move a health care reform package before the 2020 election. Trump had surprised GOP lawmakers a week earlier when he told them in a private lunch meeting to put together legislation to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which Trump’s Justice Department is opposing in court.

A few days later, Trump caught GOP lawmakers flat-footed again when he said he planned to nominate Cain, a 2012 GOP presidential candidate who dropped out of the race when sexual harassment allegations emerged, to a top Fed post.