Paul Ryan says North Korean missile launch means Trump needs his tax cut ASAP

The top leadership of the Republican Party — Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Paul Ryan — used the threatening missile launch from North Korea as an excuse to push legislation handing out tax cuts to Trump and other wealthy people.

In a statement to the press, Trump complained that Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi declined to attend the meeting scheduled at the White House. Schumer and Pelosi chose not to attend because Trump declared on Twitter that he would not negotiate with them on any key issues.

Trump said that “in light of the missile launch” by North Korea, he believes that the Democrats will “be here fairly quickly” to start working on legislation like the Republican tax proposal.

Later, Ryan added that it was “regrettable” that Democrats chose to skip the meeting, and that legislation needs to be passed because “we have a military in need of our support,” which means “that work has to happen now.”

RYAN: I’ll just briefly say that I think it’s regrettable that our Democratic colleagues in the leadership chose not to join us today. For a bill to become a law, Congress has to pass a bill and the president signs a bill. That means Congress and the White House always negotiate legislation. We have important work to do, we have big deadlines to meet.

We have a military in need of our support. And that work needs to happen now and I just think it’s very regrettable that our Democratic colleagues in leadership chose to not participate because we have to negotiate these bills to get this work done for the people we represent and especially to help our military with this difficult situations we have.

And I just hope that our friends in leadership on the other side of the aisle will choose to participate so we get people’s work done.

At the top of Republican legislative priorities is their proposal to raise taxes on most Americans while giving away billions to the extremely wealthy. The Trump estate could benefit by as much as $4 billion under their tax proposal, which would also give enormous benefits to figures like McConnell and Ryan.

The U.S. militarily is extraordinarily well-funded, and to imply that it is hampered in its response to North Korea because the Democrats skipped a media availability reeks of desperation.

Trump intentionally placed empty chairs between himself, Ryan, and McConnell, in a hamfisted attempt at theatrics. But soon after the availability was over, Pelosi pointed out how “sad” it was that Ryan and McConnell were “relegated to props” during the “empty chair photo op.”

.@realDonaldTrump now knows that his verbal abuse will no longer be tolerated. His empty chair photo opp showed he’s more interested in stunts than in addressing the needs of the American people. Poor Ryan and McConnell relegated to props. Sad!

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) November 28, 2017

The stunt showed off how little difference there now is in tone, theatrics, and dishonesty amongst top Republican leaders. It never was just Trump — as Ryan and McConnell proved once again.

As Ryan previously declared, “We merged our agendas.”