Plan B Forum

South Carolina U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford: Trump threatened to back primary challenger against me

WASHINGTON — Against the backdrop of crumbling negotiations over the GOP bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump said last week he wanted to oust incumbent U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford in 2018.

The South Carolina Republican told The Post and Courier that Trump chose to convey this message through an intermediary: White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, a former member of the S.C. congressional delegation, co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus and a friend.

"'The president asked me to look you square in the eyes and to say that he hoped that you voted ‘no’ on this bill so he could run (a primary challenger) against you in 2018,'" Sanford said Mulvaney told him.

He added that Mulvaney made it clear he did not want to deliver the message but did so at Trump's insistence.

"I’ve never had anyone, over my time in politics, put it to me as directly as that," Sanford said, perhaps understating just how monumental it is for a sitting president to openly go after members of his own party.

Sanford also isn't alone in bearing the brunt of Trump's ire. On Thursday, a week after GOP leaders canceled the vote on the health care bill, Trump tweeted he had no qualms about targeting the entire Freedom Caucus next year.

"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!" Trump wrote. ..."

House conservatives call Trump an ungrateful bully after threat to unseat them in 2018


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Todd J. Gillman Katie Leslie Jamie Lovegrove


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared war Thursday on House conservatives who helped derail his health care plan last week, threatening to unseat them in 2018 — and lumping them with Democrats as the cause of his troubles.

Many pushed back. They called Trump a bully who has already lost his political soul to the Washington establishment, and an unreliable, ungrateful ally who has quickly forgotten their help in the election.

The threat and backlash mark a major escalation in a brewing Republican civil war. It reflected deep frustrations from a president whose first major legislative foray ended in defeat, and an unusual willingness to turn against fellow Republicans.

"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!" Trump tweeted.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Tyler, a staunch Trump defender last fall and in the past week, objected strongly to the president "demonizing" allies — friends who "were very vociferous in defending him in October when all of the Republican elected leaders in the House were abandoning him."