Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, said in early December that some of president-elect Donald Trump's plans "are not going to line up very well with our conservative policies," though he did say there's much that the incoming president and Congress agree upon.
"Let's work on the things we know where we're together," Flores said, according to Politico. "And then we'll figure out the rest in the next six months."
Many of Trump's supporters focused on the comment. Breitbart, the news site formerly run by Trump adviser Stephen Bannon, said Flores' remarks indicated a plan from House Republicans to "isolate and block President Donald Trump's populist campaign promises."
"If any politician in either party veers from what the voters clearly voted for in a landslide election … we stand at the ready to call them out on it and hold them accountable," an unnamed Breitbart editor told Politico.
Another Republican congressman, Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, received a similar reaction, including angry phone calls, letters and tweets, after he wrote an op-ed in August calling for Trump to release his tax returns.
"Nobody wants to go first," Sanford told Politico. "People are naturally reticent to be the first out of the block for fear of Sean Hannity, for fear of Breitbart, for fear of local folks."
Fox News host Sean Hannity targeted the Breitbart story on his radio show, saying that Flores' talk of focusing on common goals was a Washington way of saying "go to hell" to Trump.
"All they want to do, even the Republicans, is do the things that they want, not the things that Trump ran on," Hannity said, according to Politico. "If I'm Trump, I'd read this very closely."
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