Marc Short is the president’s top congressional lobbyist, and as such has the inside track into the mind of Team Trump. In a recent media roundtable breakfast, hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Short explained that the President believes that the nation works best when the two parties work together to pass legislation.

Short continued by reminding the media that during his eight years in office, President Obama never made any attempt to work with Republicans on major policy issues. In fact, Short continued, there were many Democrat legislators who often complained that they were never approached or asked to help with legislative initiatives either. 

This is not the way President Trump plans to run his office.

“We still believe that tax reform will be better if done on a bipartisan basis,” Short told the gathered media. “And we’ve also learned,” he continued, speaking about the Obamacare repeal effort, “that keeping 50-52 Republicans is not something that’s reliable. And so despite promises of commitments that they made to voters since 2010, we don’t feel like we can assume we can get tax reform done strictly on a partisan basis. So it’s wise for us, not just from a policy perspective, but from a vote counting perspective to try to reach out and earn the support of Democrats as well.”

Short told the media that the President wasn’t just employing high level meetings with Democrat leaders, he was also meeting with influential groups like the Club for Growth, Heritage and Americans for Prosperity. He’s also hosting various bipartisan groups in an effort to build a winning coalition. The President also plans to take his tax reform agenda on the road, directly to the American people, and ask voters to pressure their representatives to get on board with his blueprint for reforming our economy.

Short also made it clear that the President would no longer rely on GOP leadership to help him push his agenda because they had proven unequal to the task over the last year. Instead, the President has decided to build bridges with the left in an effort to get as much of his agenda passed as possible… even if it means helping the Democrats get some of their agenda passed too.

“As far as with the relationships with members, and with leadership, I think that the president maintains a strong relationship with Mitch McConnell and with Speaker Ryan right now. And I think that despite some of the news of the last week, I don’t know that we think there’s anything wrong that he also has good relationships with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.  

I think we would argue that the Obama administration in some ways failed to have those relationships across the aisle and it probably hurt them in some of the things that they were trying to do and it probably hurt the country for not getting more done.

So I think you’ll continue to see the president to not look it as, ‘Hey what do I need to do to stay in the good graces of Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan.’ He’s going to look at it and say, ‘What’s in the best interest of the American people,’” Short said.

It’s a fair criticism of Obama, and the GOP leadership, but it’s also a worrisome philosophical trend. Almost everything the Democrats want to accomplish is not only bad policy, but it’s dangerous for the future health of our nation. Trump helping them accomplish any of their goals will weaken his support among conservatives and will continue to make it hard for him to get Republican legislators on board with his agenda.

Today’s Democrat Party is ruinous for America, and we should not be helping them accomplish any of their stated goals, because the means by which they wish to accomplish those goals is an existential threat to our way of life.