President Barack Obama failed abysmally when he tried to persuade House Democrats to support trade authority legislation, Newsmax's chief political columnist and White House correspondent
John Gizzi told
Newsmax TV on Friday.
"The president, for the first time in his 10 years at that building right behind me, used his powers of persuasion on a specific piece of legislation," Gizzi, who works on Capitol Hill, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. "At one point, he told members of Congress when he went up to Capitol Hill that 'a vote against this is a vote against me.'"
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"Well, you know the rest of the story," Gizzi said, referring to the stunning 126-302 vote that killed retaining aid legislation that was integral to Obama gaining fast-track authority to negotiate deals with foreign governments.
Radio talk-show host Larry Elder linked Obama's legislative embarrassment to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and ratified the next year by Congress.
The accord, which includes Canada and Mexico and took effect in 1994, has long been slammed by Republicans and Democrats alike for sending millions of U.S. jobs abroad.
"The 800-pound gorilla in the room was NAFTA," Elder told Hayworth. "Obama ran against NAFTA."
He "expects all these Democrats who have been trained to be protectionists to embrace legislation that they otherwise would've opposed?" Elder asked. "That's the problem — and on the Republican side, they don't trust Obama."
House Speaker John Boehner scheduled a second vote on the retraining assistance for Tuesday, but political analyst Ed Pozzuoli doubts whether few Democrats would buck Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who strongly opposed the bill.
"She really stuck it to the president here," said Pozzuoli, former co-chairman of Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaign in Florida. "It's a little bit of an embarrassment for the president.
"He did put his personal credibility on the line — and the Democrats went back to their natural place to protectionism, protectionism at all costs," he told Hayworth.
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