“I’m doing the best that I can, when I disagree with the president it’s pretty obvious. And when I agree with the president I’m willing to work with him,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said of President Donald Trump. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Heitkamp to hitch a ride with Trump on Air Force One

President Donald Trump is giving Heidi Heitkamp far warmer treatment than he gave Claire McCaskill.

The president will host Sen. Heitkamp (D-N.D.) on Air Force One on Wednesday as they travel to North Dakota for Trump’s event on tax reform, suggesting that Trump won’t attack the vulnerable Heitkamp as he did similarly imperiled McCaskill in Missouri last week.


Heitkamp told reporters that she opposes some of the tax policies the Trump administration has been floating, like taxing 401(k) accounts, but that she’s been in regular contact with chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and other administration officials. It's a sharp contrast from most other Democrats, who believe Trump and the congressional GOP merely want to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

“We’ve always said that we’re interested in tax reform,” Heitkamp said. “I continue to be curious about what the actual plan is.”

Heitkamp is one of just three Senate Democrats who declined to sign a letter to GOP leaders demanding that Republicans abstain from using the party-line budget reconciliation maneuver for tax reform. McCaskill signed it, and Trump urged Missourians to vote her out if she doesn’t back his tax reform effort.

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In contrast, Heitkamp met with Trump during the transition last year about a Cabinet position, which would have flipped her seat to the GOP but never materialized. She recalled that effort was “pretty real” in a lengthy interview in North Dakota earlier this year, one of several face-to-face encounters she's had with Trump.

She said it's all part of how she's dealing with a president who is popular in North Dakota but reviled by the Democratic base and most of her colleagues.

“I’m doing the best that I can, when I disagree with the president it’s pretty obvious. And when I agree with the president I’m willing to work with him,” she said in the interview earlier this year.

