Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur might have singlehandedly saved the Obamacare repeal effort.

But rather than being hailed a hero, the New Jersey lawmaker has come under fire from GOP centrists, who are incensed he negotiated with Freedom Caucus ringleader Mark Meadows.


Moderates in recent days have cornered MacArthur, a leader of the centrist Tuesday Group, on the House floor or in hallways to air their gripes. “You are going to make us lose the majority,” one said, according to MacArthur.

MacArthur’s Tuesday Group colleagues have even suggested they might oust him as leader, as The Hill first reported. MacArthur has become so toxic within the group that he’s intentionally stayed out of final negotiations this week, as leaders try to cajole dozens of centrists to accept the deal he brokered with conservatives.

“My amendment has caused far more of a stir than I anticipated,” MacArthur said in an interview Wednesday. “And I made the judgment that I think for me, particularly with the moderates, it’s better if I stay out of the way at the moment.”

Asked Wednesday afternoon whether he is worried about his leadership position in Tuesday Group, MacArthur responded, “We’ll see.”

“I do accept you cannot lead people who don’t want to go where you want to go, so I’ll see what they want, and I’ll see what I want,” he said.

In a subsequent interview after a Tuesday Group huddle, however, MacArthur twice rejected the notion that he would step down as co-chair.

“The Tuesday Group are among my closest friends here in Congress," MacArthur said. "These are people in districts like mine. Our focus, as it always is, is on governing. And the members of this group are trying to figure out the best way to proceed on this bill.”

The 56-year-old former insurance executive jumped into the Obamacare repeal talks after House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) pulled the bill from the floor last month. Conservatives in the Freedom Caucus had refused to back the bill, but they were looking for a new partner to work with in trying to bridge the divide between the far-right and center part of the conference.

Many in the Tuesday Group wanted nothing to do with the Freedom Caucus, a group of three-dozen hard-liners viewed with disdain by many House Republicans. One of MacArthur’s co-chairs, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), even speculated that the Freedom Caucus — then being pummeled by President Donald Trump for blocking the GOP health bill — simply wanted to shift the blame to someone else.

Tuesday Group members were also sensitive to their colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, run by fellow Tuesday Group member Greg Walden (R-Ore.). The committee did not condone talks between the two groups without leadership supervision, so they urged the group to stay out of it.

But the White House and Vice President Mike Pence encouraged discussions. So MacArthur proceeded. He latched onto an idea floated in a meeting hosted by Pence just hours before the vote was canceled in late March: to allow states to opt out of Obamacare regulations.

Just a day or two after the canceled vote, MacArthur said he “put pen to paper” and started drafting the amendment. He ran the proposal by Ryan, who instructed him to talk to Meadows.

“I just felt very strongly that there was a lost opportunity,” MacArthur told POLITICO. Tuesday Group members “did not want to have a discussion with the Freedom Caucus, so I spoke as an individual, and I think Mark spoke as the chairman of Freedom Caucus.”

Freedom Caucus members, he admits, were “much more involved” in haggling over the final language. But that’s because “my guys didn’t want to be involved,” he said.

Several weeks later, MacArthur and Meadows unveiled an agreement that received the Freedom Caucus’ endorsement. Conservatives since then have praised and thanked him for listening to their concerns when they felt excluded by leadership. Traditional Republicans who belong to neither group have also applauded MacArthur’s effort.

“I hope that he’s not disparaged, because I think he’s a legitimate guy who’s not in it for the attention but is in it for the cause,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.).

Rep. Tom MacArthur’s co-chair, Charlie Dent, speculated that the Freedom Caucus — then being pummeled by President Donald Trump for blocking the GOP health bill — simply wanted to shift the blame to someone else. | Getty

But Tuesday Group meetings have been heated since MacArthur made his move. Moderates have complained that MacArthur’s amendment would not protect people with pre-existing conditions. Some Tuesday Group members who were committed to backing the earlier bill are now undecided.

Tuesday Group members are not publicly calling for MacArthur's ouster. Rather, they appear to be signaling it’s up to him to decide his own fate.

Fellow New Jersey Rep. Leonard Lance, a Tuesday Group member, said whether to step down is "a decision [MacArthur will] have to make.” Lance, a steadfast opponent of the repeal bill, said MacArthur still has a “future” in the group, calling him a “very valued member.”

Tuesday Group member and Trump loyalist Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) — who just a day earlier had suggested House Republicans ditch the MacArthur amendment — said, “I guess you could say he helped it get over the finish line.”

“We’re not going to oust him from the Tuesday Group,” Collins said. “At the end, he’ll have to make his own decision.”

MacArthur never saw the blowback coming. He knew centrists would be upset with him at first but figured eventually “they would get there.”

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“I certainly didn’t see all this noise and what all has followed; I just saw an opportunity to fix a problem,” he said, later adding that thousands of people "are calling my offices from all over the place.”

Dent told POLITICO that he expects Tuesday Group members to discuss whether to change its approach, in light of the splintering over health care. The Freedom Caucus, he said, “is more ideologically unified than our group is” and are “prepared to stick together.” The Tuesday Group, however, is broader: Though it ostensibly represents moderates, it’s actually a blend of members from across the ideological spectrum.

“We have members who are strongly conservative, others who are more moderate and all sorts of folks in between,” Dent said. “We don’t enforce any particular discipline.”

It’s something he acknowledges provides the group less leverage than the Freedom Caucus, which bands together as a bloc to exert leverage on legislation.

Dent said members of the group expressed to him that the only people negotiating health care policy should be the lawmakers who sit on the relevant committees.

“I respected their wish,” he said.

While MacArthur hails from a swing district and could easily see problems at the polls in 2018, he said he’s not worried about losing his seat.

“I didn’t come here to decorate chairs," he said.