Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke at a Rotary club in Northern Kentucky yesterday where he said Congress is not actually as terrible as reports suggest.
The problem, McConnell says, is that Trump has no idea how the legislative process works.
"Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before," said McConnell according to CNN affiliate WCPO which covered the event. "I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process." [...]
"Part of the reason I think people think we're under-performing is because of too many artificial deadlines unrelated to the reality of the legislature which may have not been understood."
Of course, another reason people may think Congress is under-performing is because they haven't done anything beyond the bare minimum expected of them.
They did manage to pass a sweeping sanction bills to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 election, and they managed to avoid a government shutdown by passing a funding bill for what remains of fiscal 2017, but that's the least they could do. For better or worse, these actions more or less represent the status quo.
Furthermore, the actions they've taken this year are nearly identical to the actions they've undertaken every year since Republicans gained control of Congress. They failed to repeal Obamacare, but it's not the first time. Actually, it's not even the 50th time. They've also waited until the last possible second to fund the federal government and avoid a shutdown several years in a row. Sometimes they do this two or three times per year.
And the irony is, if congressional Republicans actually did manage to accomplished their goals, no one would like it. Accomplishing all of their goals, from kicking 20 to 30 million people off their health care, to cutting trillions of dollars in federal spending, could mean economic collapse if not societal.
With all of that said, a broken clock is right twice a day and McConnell is absolutely right about Donald Trump.
Trump has no idea how the legislative process works. Trump doesn't appear to be capable of even comprehending legislation or the impact it will have. He couldn't tell you the details of policy he publicly supports.