GOP Strategy to Impeach Trump

USA TODAY – The strategy of baiting a spouse into a justifiable divorce could be a valuable political tool. American conservatives are locked in a tumultuous marriage with ideology-free populist President Trump, and the temptation for right-wingers to consciously uncouple from his nationalist supporters grows stronger daily.
Take last week’s rollout of what House Republicans are calling the American Health Care Act, a plan crafted by the speaker of the House, longtime conservative stalwart Paul Ryan. The plan was a sponge for negative reviews, but Trump gave it his imprimatur, offering to do everything he could to aid its passage.
But while Ryan burned up the airwaves selling the plan, Trump’s band of self-described “alt-righters” at Breitbart were working to undermine the speaker as soon as the health care plan dropped. The site, formerly headed by Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, has had it in for Ryan for years: In December 2015, Bannon wrote to one of his reporters that his goal was to have Ryan “gone by spring.” IDES OF MARCH After the AHCA announcement last week, Breitbart leaked the audio of an October Ryan conference call in which he said he was “not going to defend Donald Trump — not now, not in the future.” The website said the recording “calls into question whether Speaker Ryan … really understands how Trump won and how to win in general.”
Yet Ryan’s comments had already been reported — so the fact that Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle thought they were somehow suddenly newsworthy during the health care debate is the only noteworthy part of the story. In essence, Ryan negotiated a lessthan-conservative deal with Trump, took heat for it, then found himself under attack by Trump’s acolytes for his efforts.
On Wednesday, the Ides of March, Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord said on CNN that he thinks the White House should ignore the “Ryan plan” and instead let Obamacare “crash.”