Nearly two dozen representatives of Ohio’s Tea Party have written a letter to President Donald Trump, chiding Trump for tweeting out a threat directed at the House Freedom Caucus after the GOP healthcare bill collapsed last week.
The letter calls on President Trump “to stand with our conservative heroes,” as personified by Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan and the other House Republicans who make up the Freedom Caucus. The president’s tweet indicated he would work to defeat caucus members in the 2018 midterms.
Tom Zawistowski of the Portage County Tea Party says he objects to the us-vs.-them tone of the tweet.
The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017
“We’re not them. We’re us," Zawistowski says. "If you think the Freedom Caucus is them, well then, Mr. President, you don’t have any support because the people who elected the Freedom Caucus elected you.”
Zawistowski says caucus members were close to getting what he calls a true free-market alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and he believes a compromise on a new bill is imminent.
