White House officials are pushing their favored candidates to become Donald Trump’s new point person on Capitol Hill
White House officials, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, are pushing their favored candidates to become Donald Trump’s new point person on Capitol Hill — an unenviable job that has become even more challenging as the president’s relationship with Congress hits a new low.
The long-expected departure of Trump’s current legislative affairs director, Shahira Knight, immediately set off behind-the-scenes jockeying over her replacement. Trump, in turn, has been asking advisers who they think would be a good fit, but he hasn’t yet become deeply engaged in the search, according to two White House officials.The president is expected to interview three or four candidates as soon as next week, when he returns from Japan, one White House official said.
Candidates who have been recommended to Trump include: Eric Ueland, deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and a former top Senate aide; Jonathan Slemrod, a former Office of Management and Budget official who now works downtown at Harbinger Strategies; Monica Popp, the former chief of staff to Texas Sen. John Cornyn; Ben Howard, the current deputy legislative affairs director and a former House staffer; and Tim Pataki, current head of the White House Office of Public Liaison.
The eventual pick will take on the hefty job of maintaining relationships with lawmakers even as Trump alienates them. Trump vowed this week not to work with Democrats until they end the investigations encircling him, leaving the White House and Congress in a stalemate with few legislative prospects.
Slemrod would bring to the job a close relationship with Mulvaney, for whom he worked at the budget agency for roughly two years. He has strong ties to the Senate and worked for Cornyn and former Sen. Jon Kyl on appropriations, budget, tax, and trade, issues that now dominate the congressional schedule. He now works downtown at Harbinger Strategies, but two senior administration aides downplayed him as the eventual pick despite his close Mulvaney ties.
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