President Trump’s support for restoring congressional earmarks is drawing resistance from those in his own party.
“Maybe we should think about it,” Trump told a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House on Tuesday. “Maybe all of you should think about going back to a form of earmarks. You should do it.”
But GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), who has openly criticized Trump in the past, quickly dismissed the idea of allowing lawmakers to fund pet projects within large spending bills.
“That’s crazy talk — that’s just — we shouldn’t do it,” Flake, who is retiring from the Senate after this year, said. “That is the swampiest thing that anybody could talk about [in] Washington if you’re talking about draining the swamp — you’re putting a firehose and refilling it there.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a former presidential contender who ran on a platform against earmark spending, says reintroducing the process won’t help Congress bridge political divides.
Asked if he thought earmarks would make it easier to strike deals, as Trump suggested, Rubio said “No, no, I don’t. I don’t want to have earmark spending.”
Still, fellow GOP Senator Bob Corker (Tenn.) — who warned against reintroducing the earmark system as it was used previously — said “maybe there’s a way to change the way that it’s done” but until that point it’s “not an appropriate way to do business here.”
Watch the video above to hear the senators in their own words.