President Trump should not underestimate Jerry Nadler
By Steve Israel, opinion contributor — 03/06/19 12:00 PM EST
Conversations with Representative Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who this week has launched a sweeping demand for documents from associates of President Trump, are rarely brisk. The New York Democrat is loquacious on just about any topic. I once sat with him, badly jet lagged, during a congressional delegation to Israel. The topics covered Israeli ballistic missile capabilities, the Arab Spring, and several thousand years of lengthy biblical archeology. At a meeting in my office on the topics of mass transit and rail freight, he dominated with statistics on vehicular traffic flows east and west on the Long Island Expressway.
He is not the flashiest member of Congress, but is easily one of the most substantive. He is also a tempting target for adversaries with a flare for underestimation. There is an ignominious roster of people who thought that Nadler was easy prey. I watched how he arrived at his decision to support the nuclear deal with Iran. The expedient politics would have been to oppose it, especially because he was being threatened with a Democratic primary. However, he chose the more challenging path of questioning President Obama, mastering the details of the negotiations, and challenging positions on both sides of the issue. Ultimately, Nadler supported the deal, while I took an opposite position, and received a nasty primary opponent. But for Nadler, principles outweighed politics.
This is not to say to say that he is a “Mister Smith Goes to Washingtonâ€Â character who operates on the high oxygen content of principles alone. The man is wily. You have to be to survive the bare knuckle politics of New York Democrats. Nadler has a career of outfoxing and outthinking his adversaries. Within the electoral darwinian politics of New York City, survival of the fittest is established in the dark trenches where battles are waged over Democratic district leaders and clubhouse power. That is where Nadler shaped his political muscle and sharpened his instincts.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/432794-president-trump-should-not-underestimate-jerry-nadler
