President Barack Obama responded to a stinging defeat dealt by his own party by declaring victory.

It is a common tactic in Washington to downplay bad news, but the White House brought it to a new level on Friday after House Democrats soundly defeated a package of free trade legislation that the president had personally implored them to pass. The White House chose to highlight the fact that one part of the package passed, even though two approvals were necessary to give Obama the trade authority he needs to negotiate the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.


“It’s déjà vu all over again,” a chipper White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Friday, praising what he called “bipartisan support” for the legislation. The 126-302 defeat of a key trade measure was just a glitch: “To the surprise of very few, another procedural snafu has emerged. These kinds of entanglements are endemic to the House of Representatives.’’

But the truth was more complex, and more troubling for the president. The GOP-led House had structured the trade vote as a tandem: Both parts needed to pass, or neither would advance. That meant that by defeating the first one, the approval of the second was mostly symbolic — and that there was no clear way to move toward new votes on the bill.

Which is why the president’s assertion of victory seemed implausible at best.

“That’s a good thing,” Obama said of the second vote, passage of a measure known as Trade Promotion Authority, which would authorize him to complete negotiations on the Pacific trade deal. “These kinds of agreements reflect the realities of a 21st -century economy. These kinds of agreements make sure that the global economy’s rules aren’t written by countries like China; They’re written by the United States of America.”

The vote that scuttled the legislation — at least for now — was one to reauthorize a program to help workers who lose their jobs because of a trade deal get retraining and other assistance, to the tune of $450 million. The program, known as Trade Adjustment Assistance, had long been supported by Democrats and their allies in organized labor. But this time, they decided to sacrifice it for the larger aim of scuttling the trade deal.

In his statement, Obama accused members who voted against TAA of harming middle-class workers.

“That inaction will directly hurt about 100,000 workers and their communities annually if those members of Congress don’t reconsider,” Obama said. “I urge the House to pass TAA without delay so that more middle-class workers can earn the chance to participate and succeed in our global economy.”

White House officials described the TAA vote as a temporary setback, noting that a new vote might be held next week.

The plan is to give House leadership the space to untangle the so-called “snafu” – an approach that proved successful after an earlier setback when the bill was before the Senate. Meanwhile, Obama and his staff will continue to work on Democrats through the weekend, with Labor Secretary Tom Perez hitting the Sunday show circuit.

“The hard part is done,” Earnest said. “We certainly believe that we can convince more Democrats to support a program that they have previously supported and that our economists can demonstrate benefits families all across the country.”

The defeat came even after Obama made a rare, last-ditch lobbying visit to Capitol Hill, his first since September 2013. He met privately with the entire House Democratic caucus, and made his pitch, ending with an injunction to “vote your values,” according to one person in the room. That followed what Earnest described as “dozens” of conversations with House and Senate Democrats, including small meetings of just three or four members, often held in Obama’s private dining room just off the Oval Office.

But it was too little too late. The White House had spent the past few weeks focused on getting the 25 to 28 Democratic votes they needed on the second part of the bill, fast-track authority, which was supported by a lot of Republicans. The assumption was that even Democrats who opposed TPA would vote in favor of supporting displaced workers.

That assumption still essentially holds, administration officials say privately. The fund will disappear if it’s not actively renewed, so the White House reason Democrats will be open to finding a way to ultimately vote for it.

So the successful TPA vote is a genuine confidence booster heading into the weekend, the officials say, especially since the mission now is to get Democrats to vote for just the TAA, a measure they support in substance.

But so far, neither the policy nor Obama’s appeal for support has proven compelling to the House Democratic Caucus as a whole. He has earned a reputation for keeping his distance from Congress, for being reluctant to engage with lawmakers and the procedural shenanigans that determine the outcome of so much legislation.

And then there’s the fact that he’s rapidly approaching lame-duck status.

House Democrats “are going to be running for reelection, he’s not,” said Georgetown presidential historian Stephen Wayne. “Support ebbs in the second term within your own party.”

It’s not clear whether Obama has the power to resurrect his trade agenda — at least without a significant number of Democratic lawmakers changing their minds. And that might require even more personal effort and diplomacy on Obama’s part, even though it hasn’t proven to be his strong suit.

“He’s not the kind of president that enjoys interaction with political leaders like Bill Clinton did, and like Ronald Reagan did, and like George H. W. Bush was willing to do,” Wayne said.

But he’s going to try: Obama will host a picnic for members of Congress at the White House on Wednesday evening.

“So that’ll be fun,” Earnest deadpanned.

John Bresnahan and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.