Nancy Pelosi just snubbed Obama over huge trade deal

House Democrats just helped kill a key part of President Obama's top-priority trade bill.

In a stunning defeat, the Obama-backed Trade Adjustment Assistance provision was voted down, with the final vote tally coming to 126-302.

Following a closed-door meeting with Obama and House Democrats on Friday, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined rebels inside her party and announced her opposition.

"We want a better deal for America's workers," the California lawmaker said, according to the New York Times.

Republicans command a majority in the House, and Speaker John Boehner and the GOP leadership have worked with Obama to pass the legislation. But there were enough defections among Republican lawmakers that Obama needed the support of two dozen or so Democrats to prevail.

On Friday, Obama urged fellow Democrats not to torpedo legislation that would have let him complete global trade deals that Congress could approve or reject, but not change. The measure is commonly known as "fast-track" for the powers it bestows on the president.

The measure was tied to a retraining assistance program for workers who lose their jobs as a result of foreign trade. As the New York times notes, this idea has been popular with Democrats for years, but became toxic once it was attached to Obama's fast-track deal.

The move caught the GOP off-guard.

House Republicans, already in the awkward position of allying themselves with Obama, found themselves being asked by their leaders to vote for a worker retraining program that most have long opposed as wasteful. Many were reluctant to do so.

The House's rejection of the measure leaves the trade proposal in a legislative limbo, neither passed nor defeated.

"Basically the president tried to both guilt people and then impugn their integrity," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., one of the most outspoken opponents of the legislation.

Another Democrat, Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, said Obama had told Democrats that "his whole philosophy, life, everything he's done has been to help people. And he thinks he's doing that with this trade agreement."

Business groups generally favor the measure. But strong opposition by organized labor carries at least an implicit threat to the re-election of any Democrat who votes in the bill's favor.

The debate and vote are certain to reverberate in next year's presidential election as well. Most Republican contenders favor the trade bill. Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton is uncommitted, despite calls from presidential rival Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders, an opponent of the measure, to take a position.

The president's hastily arranged visit to Capitol Hill marked a bid to stave off a humiliating defeat at the hands of his own party.

His visit relegated much of the debate on the House floor to the status of a sideshow.

"Is America going to shape the global economy, or is it going to shape us?" said Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who is head of the House Ways and Means Committee and a GOP pointman on an issue that scrambled the normal party alignment in divided government.

But Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., countered that the legislation heading toward a showdown vote included "no meaningful protections whatever against currency manipulation" by some of America's trading partners, whose actions he said have "ruined millions of middle class jobs."

Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, an opponent of the legislation, said Obama's appeal "didn't convince me. It may have convinced other members."

Gaining a majority for the retraining funds - normally a Democratic priority - emerged as even tougher than for the trade negotiating authority itself.

Other presidents have had the authority Obama seeks. The White House wanted the legislation as it works to wrap up a round of talks with 11 Pacific Area countries.