Washington, DC – President Donald Trump decided to host Republican lawmakers at Camp David this weekend to chalk out a legislative strategy for the election year 2018 and beyond. According to the White House, the President is hosting “bi-cameral Congressional Leadership for a small-group discussion of 2018 legislative priorities and the successful passage of tax cuts and reform.”
“We have a lot of things to work on, a lot of things to accomplish,” Trump said before boarding Marine One from the White House for Frederick County. “We’re going to Camp David with a lot of the great Republican senators, and we’re making America great again,” he added but didn’t take any shouted questions from the media.
The White House provided a readout of the first “productive meeting at Camp David” on Friday (no press coverage) saying, “The discussion centered on the important economic and national security priorities of the 2018 legislative session. The group discussed the recent successful passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and noted that immediate benefits for millions of Americans including bonuses and lower energy rates are just the beginning of the law’s positive ramifications.”
The discussions were focussed on the shared priorities to shape the 2018 legislative agenda and the White House noted that these would be outlined in the President’s State of the Union Address at the end of the month.
Listing the priorities, the White House said these include: “ensuring continued economic growth, national security, promoting responsible immigration reform, funding our troops, rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, the FY19 budget, welfare reform, the opioid crisis, healthcare, the 2018 elections and confirming the President’s qualified nominees.”
Among those attending, conspicuous by his absence is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Justice Department confirmed that the invite to attend was never received.
The list of the participants (provided by the White House) is as follows:
President Donald J. Trump
Vice President Mike Pence
Senators/Members:
Senate Majority Leader McConnell
Senate Majority Whip Cornyn
Speaker Paul Ryan
House Majority Leader McCarthy
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise
Cabinet Arriving Saturday Morning:
Secretary Rex Tillerson, Department of State
Secretary Jim Mattis, Department of Defense
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Department of Homeland Security
Secretary Betsy Devos, Department of Education
Director Mike Pompeo, Central Intelligence Agency
Director Mick Mulvaney, Office of Management and Budget
Administrator Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency
Dep Sec Jeffrey Rosen, Department of Transportation
Staff:
General John Kelly, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff
Marc Short, Assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs
Gary Cohn, Assistant to the President
Johnny DeStefano, Assistant to the President
Bill Stepien, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Political Affairs
Mercedes Schlapp, Assistant to the President
Sarah Sanders, Assistant to the President
Stephen Miller, Assistant to the President
Andrew Bremberg, Assistant to the President