What Happens When Trump Sends Key Policy Issues To Congress

For the Iran nuclear deal, health care and immigration, President Trump has declared he's keeping campaign promises. But he's also creating more challenges for GOP lawmakers.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

President Trump announced today that he wouldn't recertify the Iran nuclear deal. That doesn't mean that he's pulling out of the multi-nation agreement, at least not yet. Instead he's calling on Congress to pass a new law to address what he describes as the deal's many flaws. Sending a thorny problem over to Congress to solve is something the president has done before, as NPR's Tamara Keith reports.

TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: In a speech from the Diplomatic Room at the White House, President Trump said Iran is not living up to the spirit of the nuclear deal.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I am announcing today that we cannot and will not make this certification.

KEITH: That announcement opens the door for congressional action, and that's exactly what Trump is asking for.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: I am directing my administration to work closely with Congress and our allies to address the deal's many serious flaws so that the Iranian regime can never threaten the world with nuclear weapons.

KEITH: And with that, President Trump dumped another item on Congress's already very full plate. Last night, he announced another decision that could well require Congress to step in - halting cost-sharing subsidy payments to insurance companies. Those payments were designed to keep premiums down for low-income consumers, but Trump said they are illegal and just a gift to insurance companies. Speaking at the Value Voters Summit this morning, Trump said stopping the payments was part of an effort to undo the Affordable Care Act.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: One by one, it's going to come down. And we're going to have great health care in our country.

(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We are going to have great health care in our country. We're taking a little different route than we had hoped because getting Congress - they forgot what their pledges were.

KEITH: Still, he said he hoped this would prompt Congress to take bipartisan action to repeal and replace Obamacare.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TRUMP: We are really working very hard, and hopefully Congress will come through.

KEITH: It's not clear the president and Congress are even remotely on the same page about that. And that's not the only item the president wants Congress to act on. There's also the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. When Trump announced he would put a six-month expiration date on the program, he tweeted, quote, "Congress, get ready to do your job - DACA" - exclamation point. Trump talked about the issue earlier this week on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "HANNITY")

TRUMP: And what I want is tremendous border regulation. I want the wall, and we're going to get other things. And we're going to see if we can work something out. Now, whether or not we do, I don't know. But it would be wonderful to solve the DACA problem.

KEITH: When he says we, he mostly means them. Congress will have to do all of the heavy lifting. None of this will be easy for a GOP-controlled Congress that is far from unanimity on any of these matters, says Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in Congress.

SARAH BINDER: Every time you buck some big issue onto their plate, you blow the place up. And this isn't a - this is - Congress is not a well-oiled machine, all right? And so disrupting the agenda and putting more things on their lap and putting issues that are really wedge issues within the Republican Party - it's almost mind-boggling to me that a president who doesn't see himself as part of the party in Congress puts them back in that situation.

KEITH: That agenda already included passing spending bills to keep the government open for business and a tax system overhaul which Trump insisted again today he wants done by the end of the year. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the White House.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.