Peter DeFazio knew something was up.

The drapes inside the White House meeting room were drawn tight, counselor Kellyanne Conway was at the table and some of President Donald Trump’s other aides, who hadn’t previously been involved in transportation talks with Democratic leaders, were now filling the room.

Oregon’s 4th District Congressman didn’t time the president’s private comments. But DeFazio said it didn’t take long for Trump on Wednesday to detonate prospects of a $2 trillion transportation bill to rebuild the nation’s bridges, public transit, freeways and airports.

Trump accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of being rude and demanded Democrats stop investigating him before serious transportation talks would renew. The president exited to the Rose Garden, where a podium – adorned with a “no collusion and no obstruction” sign – and a press corps awaited.

“It was a setup,” DeFazio, D-Springfield, said of the president’s political play.

Real action on the nation’s transportation needs would have to wait.

DeFazio, the longest-tenured House member in Oregon history, has done a lot of waiting since being elected to Congress in 1986. He spent 32 years on what is now the transportation and infrastructure committee waiting for his chance to lead.

Those years represented an extended apprenticeship, DeFazio told The Oregonian/OregonLive in a recent interview. When Democrats won the House last November, party leadership finally gave DeFazio the gavel. And despite fevered partisanship that animates the nation’s very existence during the Trump era, DeFazio saw his opportunity as committee chairman to deliver something different -- bipartisan good.

President Donald Trump left a meeting with Democrats to speak at this podium on Wednesday in the Rose Garden, with stats on what the president claims are unfair investigations. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)AP

The Apprentice was suddenly in position to cross party lines and pass a transportation bill with Trump, the former reality-show-star-by-the-same-name turned America’s 45th president.

Up until Wednesday, DeFazio said he believed the transportation bill could still be passed. Trump had shown interest during past meetings in finding ways to pay for major improvements – including being open to the idea of raising the federal gas tax, something that hasn’t happened in 26 years. He banked on the President to push Sen. Mitch McConnell to get on board. But DeFazio blames Trump aides, like chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, for derailing the process.

“Now, I don’t know,” DeFazio said from a balcony of the Capitol, in between votes. “I have no idea where he’s truly at on the issue.

In his 17th Congressional term, DeFazio understands this bill might be one of the signature accomplishments of his career. It’s something he’s pursued for decades, pushing and prodding colleagues from both parties to think creatively about ways to pay for freeways, roads, mass transit, bridges, harbors and airports.

DeFazio, and others, are hopeful there still may be a chance.

“Peter is tenacious in a way that I think reflects his impatience with the fact that it takes a long time to get anything big done in Washington, anything big done on the committee,” said Ray LaHood, a former Republican Congressman from Illinois who served as Secretary of Transportation under Democratic President Barack Obama, “And I think now is his opportunity.”

But whether it truly is time for a major transportation bill may have as much to do with partisan politics as the prospects of DeFazio finding common ground with Trump.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, in his Eugene office in May 2019.

BEER AND DOGS

These are different men.

DeFazio, 71, is a beer-drinking, dog-loving, former wrestler who is admittedly skeptical about the intentions of the wealthy. Trump, 72, famously doesn’t drink, dislikes animals, owns multiple golf courses and built his entire public persona on being a rich businessman.

But interviews with former staffers, Lane County lawmakers, long-time transportation staff and Republican colleagues point to a few commonalities between the two men.

Trump’s supporters cite his speaking style and lack of political correctness as part of his authentic charm.

DeFazio is also genuine, former advisers say, a useful trait when courting the disparate voters of a sprawling district more than three times the size of Connecticut. Karmen Fore, who worked for DeFazio and the transportation committee for a decade, said he’s consistent, whether in Sweet Home or South Eugene.

“He invests the time to learn up on issues and have a point of view,” Fore said. While other politicians are often too careful, DeFazio is not -- because he’s done his homework. “People genuinely feel that, they see that,” she said.

The dean of Oregon’s congressional delegation has strong deep relationships with his fellow representatives, too, particularly Rep. Earl Blumenauer. They’ve worked together for more than 20 years and share an affinity for bikes and wonky transportation issues.

Bill Shuster, a former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman who chaired the transportation committee until 2018, has also known DeFazio for three decades. DeFazio previously sat on the same committee with Shuster’s dad, Bud.

The younger Shuster tried – and failed – to privatize the Federal Aviation administration’s air traffic controller workforce, a proposal that infuriated DeFazio.

On the day of one key hearing, DeFazio, a sock collector who often chooses his daily footwear to match his mood, gave Shuster a peek.

DeFazio revealed “psycho bunny” socks, a rabbit with skull and crossbones – signaling that there would be verbal jousting that day.

DeFazio ultimately won when Shuster dropped that proposal in 2018 amid controversy. Shuster said he felt DeFazio’s rage then, as he’d had before.

“Peter and the president are not afraid to throw a punch,” said Shuster, himself an early Trump supporter.

DeFazio hopes it doesn’t come to that.

“He’s built things -- whether he built them, and they went bankrupt, or not -- he built things,” DeFazio said of Trump. “He’s a builder. He’s a developer. I think he wants to build or rebuild infrastructure.”

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., center, is joined by MTA Chief Development Officer Janno Lieber, right, and Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., as they walk through a portion of a New York City subway tunnel(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)AP

CADDY FOR THE RICH

DeFazio grew up in Needham, a middle-class Boston suburb. His father, Mario, was a high school wrestling coach who was ultimately inducted into the sport’s national hall of fame. His mother, Dorothea, worked at a bookstore.

He and his brother, Michael, spent their childhood building things. They messed around with fast cars, putting a Chevy Corvette engine into an Austin Healy 106. DeFazio disassembled and reassembled a bike, trying to find ways to make it work. He later got a job as a bike mechanic.

He spent summers with dad at a caddy camp for underprivileged kids some 90 miles southeast of Boston, at Eastward Ho Country Club on Cape Cod. Those were formative days for the young Irish-Italian American, who even then was known as a fiery competitor.

He grew up at that golf course in the summers, having the tough kids of South Boston as babysitters, peers and then proteges.

They carried golf clubs for the wealthy.

“It gave me a really great background, training, integration in dealing with people of all strata,” DeFazio said.

Some golfers respected the youngster’s acumen on the links. “Others just treated you like dirt,” he said.

Those interactions stuck with the 5-foot-7-inch lawmaker.

DeFazio brought those feelings to Congress, whether he was introducing legislation to tax speculative Wall Street day traders or railing against the excesses of Enron and energy companies in the wake of industry deregulations in the 1990s.

“It gave me sort of a class attitude about wealthy people,” he said. “I carry some of that skepticism today, particularly the new rich.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, pictured in his office May 13, 2019 in a courthouse in Lane County.

GRAPPLING

DeFazio continued wrestling into college at Tufts University, weighing in at match day at 137 pounds his freshman year.

The sport taught him discipline, control. He thinks it also provided valuable training on how to work in Congress, where you’re sometime locked in individual battles while part of a larger team trying to prevail.

After working on the staff of U.S. Rep. Jim Weaver for five years, DeFazio was elected to the Lane County Board of Commissioners in 1983. He ran for and won his former boss’ congressional seat in 1986 and immediately asked to be on committees for natural resources and transportation when he took office the following year.

Unlike today, there wasn’t as much centralized leadership in delegating committee assignments, so freshman lawmakers had a good chance to advocate for their own interests. DeFazio read the room and saw the nation was nearing an end to the Reagan era and experiencing huge budget deficits.

While “government spending is being cut,” he said, transportation maintained a federal trust fund and a dedicated gas tax revenue source.

“I’m still going to be able to do things on this committee,” DeFazio remembered thinking.

He didn’t anticipate that many of the same issues he faced in the late 1980s or early 1990s would still be a problem today. The federal gas tax remains stagnant, for one. Meanwhile, DeFazio and Shuster’s father in 1996 started working to mandate that a maintenance tax charged to importers be spent only on harbor maintenance.

That bill finally passed out of DeFazio’s committee this month, 23 years later.

Senator Wayne Morse (right) and Bob Packwood in a crucial debate before the 1968 election. A long-time Eugene mayor and activist likened DeFazio to Morse.

WAYNE MORSE TYPE OF DUDE

Kitty Piercy, a long-time Eugene mayor and former state lawmaker, likens DeFazio to another shape-shifting independent Oregon politician of years past.

“He’s sort of a Wayne Morse kind of dude,” Piercy said of the former U.S. Senator, who was a Republican, then an Independent, then a Democrat. Morse was one of just two Senators to oppose the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, which President Lyndon Johnson used as a rationale to ramp up military response in Vietnam.

DeFazio similarly isn’t afraid to vote against his party or the views of his constituents, Piercy said, citing a disagreement on gun control policies in the mid-1980s. “Peter has really strong feelings about standing up for what you think is right and taking the heat,” Piercy said.

He often finds himself on those fraught fronts when dealing with natural resources, particularly with logging-related issues vital to his rural Douglas and coastal constituents. But transportation observers say they’ve rarely seen DeFazio as angry as he we was with the Obama administration, when Democrats held the presidency and majorities in both legislative chambers.

About the Congressman Hobbies: DeFazio famously loves IPAs and helped start the House Small Brewers Caucus. “Beer can spark dialogue,” he said. Golf: DeFazio said he only golfs once a year because he “doesn’t have time.” When asked whether he would go golfing with President Trump, DeFazio demurred. “He’s not going to invite me.” Random: He lives in a house boat in Washington D.C. Dogs: DeFazio and wife Myrnie Daut are big-time dog lovers, favoring rescue animals. He’s on his seventh dog since being elected to Congress and third cat. He’s had two adopted animals named after Lord of the Rings characters (Bilbo and Gimli). Quote on transportation bill and Trump: “If it happens it’s going to happen because we’re pushing from the House and there will be credit to go around. But the bottom line is it benefits the country as a whole and we have another 1,000 things we can disagree with him on in the coming election. It doesn’t need to be infrastructure. I’m very disappointed that I couldn’t get this done in the Obama administration.”

DeFazio had pushed for more infrastructure spending in Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, legislation intended to both stabilize and kickstart the economy in the wake of the disastrous 2008 financial crisis. DeFazio didn’t get the money he wanted.

He pleaded with then-committee chairman Jim Oberstar, the late Minnesota lawmaker, to push for more money for infrastructure in addition to tax cuts for the middle class. Oberstar promised the next big thing would be an infrastructure bill.

“I said, ‘Jim, you’ve been here a lot longer than me, but in my experience the next thing never happens in this town,’” DeFazio said. “And sure enough, it didn’t.”

LaHood, in his role as the U.S. transportation secretary, had to deliver the bad news. DeFazio, and the nation, wouldn’t get a transformational transportation package, in part because Obama was unwilling to raise the federal gas tax.

“To put it mildly, he was furious,” LaHood said. “He really was. He thought the stars were all aligned.”

DeFazio initially supported what was estimated as a $787 billion package but ultimately switched his vote.

He was one of just 7 Democrats to oppose the 2009 stimulus package, which preserved and created jobs in the tattered economy, tax breaks and spurred construction projects.

“I can justify borrowing money to educate a kid. That’s an investment in the future,” he told The Oregonian at the time. “I can justify borrowing money to build a bridge that will serve generations to come, or a water system, or a sewer system. But I can’t justify borrowing money to give to people in tax cuts that aren’t going to have a discernible effect on helping the economy.”

Rep. Peter DeFazio and Sen. Ron Wyden at a Wednesday press conference with Speaker Pelosi and Democratic leaders. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)AP

NEXT STEPS

On Wednesday, three Pacific Northwest lawmakers assembled behind Democratic leaders Pelosi of California and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York express disappointment in the president.

But it was DeFazio, grim-faced, who stood at the center.

Ward W. McCarragher, former legal counsel to the transportation committee for 25 years, watched the scene unfold and registered DeFazio’s emotions as disappointment.

He saw DeFazio get frustrated throughout the years. “It’s almost always out of frustration about the process and the politics of people not able to find solutions,” he said, “He cares a great deal.”

Despite the political theater of Wednesday’s dueling press conferences, McCarragher said he expects the ever-creative DeFazio to keep pushing for a practical solution.

“He’s constantly been thinking of different ways to thread the needle of what’s been the most vexing problem” of how to pay for transportation projects, McCarragher said. “My expectation is he wants to work with the president.”

In his Rayburn Building office on Capitol Hill, DeFazio has a framed picture of then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller flipping the bird to a group of hecklers in 1976.

DeFazio said he loves the photo because it was a great moment in political history. But he also acknowledges another reason.

“You want to do that sometimes to your colleagues, or some interest group, but thus far I haven’t,” he said.

DeFazio said he remains hopeful about the $2 trillion bill but vowed to pursue it again, after the 2020 presidential election, if Trump refuses to return to the table.

DeFazio doesn’t intend to flip a bird to the president, either. After all, he said, leaders are supposed to serve the country’s interests over their own.

DeFazio pointed to a 1973 transportation bill as an example.

“Richard Nixon signed a landmark infrastructure package,” DeFazio said, “while he was under investigation for Watergate.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Nelson Rockefeller as a U.S. Senator when he flipped off a group of hecklers. He was Vice President of the United States.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen