Frazzled GOP lawmakers are sick of Trump's 'clown show'

Bulwark writer Joe Perticone says President Donald Trump’s Senate supporters are regretting their off-kilter president and his drastic policy missteps, and they increasingly "want the clown show they’re performing in to end."

“Just take a look at Trump’s disruptions of Senate business over the last few weeks,” wrote Perticone. “Trump supported reauthorization of FISA 702. He later demanded that FISA reauthorization be paired with the SAVE Act, an unrelated voter-suppression bill that has no chance of clearing the Senate. Trump tapped Bill Pulte to serve as interim Director of National Intelligence. Trump then nominated U.S. attorney Jay Clayton to be the permanent DNI in response to pushback he received on Pulte, including the prospect of FISA not being reauthorized.”

Perticone added, “Trump directed Clayton not to testify before the Intelligence Committee and announced he was delaying his nomination to try to force the Senate to vote on the SAVE Act.

Trump also signed the ‘memorandum of understanding’ with Iran, but withheld the text from Congress and did not brief them on its contents. The details of the MOU, now public, show broad sanctions relief for Iran without any guarantee that the country will reduce its long-term nuclear ambitions or its support of terrorism or militant proxies.

"The growing unpopularity of the [MOU] probably lowers the likelihood that it will actually come before Congress," said Perticone, but Democrats are so eager to end hostilities by any means possible that they will likely saddle Republicans and the White House with the rotten deal and then blame both for ever presenting when Americans revolt.

The conservative commentator continued that, as a result of these mistakes, Senate Republicans are extraordinarily frustrated, even by the standards of the oft-difficult Trump.

“I don’t think it’s intentional,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) when asked about the FISA 702 and Clayton fiascos. “I think somebody’s not dialing the president in to the complexities of what he’s done here.”

The outgoing lawmaker added, “I mean, my God, we were on the brink of getting 702 reauthorized and they put this sycophant Pulte in place for an interim job—a guy that already used information on loan applications—how could anybody think he’d be a credible choice? So that tanks it for a while. Then you find somebody stellar like Jay Clayton. I don’t even need to meet with the guy. I know him so well and what a reputation he has to support his nomination. So it’s just another kink in the Slinky that makes no sense.”

Regarding the past month’s list of issues, Tillis concluded that “it’s undermining our ability to produce the very results wants” on issues like Homeland Security funding, appointing a new DNI head and getting FISA 702 reauthorized.

Tillis was not alone among concerned Senate Republicans. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) said that Trump’s $300 billion fund to the Iranian government “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) described Trump’s Iran war memorandum of understanding as the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told The Daily Wire that Trump’s payout to Iran could be used to finance terrorism.

“It has also been discussed that the financial reward could be $300 billion to the Ayatollah,” Cruz said. “If that is true, that would be three times more than the money Joe Biden and Kamala Harris funneled to the Ayatollah. It is a virtual certainty that if $300 billion went to the Ayatollah, that money would be used to murder Americans.”

Senate Republicans are also frustrated by Trump endorsing extreme candidates simply because they are loyal to him in key primaries. Because those candidates have prevailed, Republicans are now vulnerable in key races like those in Georgia (where Trump picked Rep. Mike Collins over college football coach Derek Dooley to oppose the incumbent, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff) and Texas (where Trump picked the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn to oppose the Democratic nominee, seminarian James Talarico). Because of these endorsements, Senate Republicans fear they will lose control of that legislative chamber. For that to happen, Democrats would need to hold the states where they are already in power and swing Texas as well as pick up states like Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Ohio.

"The constant chaos that has descended on the Senate is the creation of a president who thrives on misdirection and surprise," said Perticone. "His poor attention span and susceptibility to easy persuasion by anyone who can grab his ear makes disorder a recurring feature of the administration, not an aberration. That may be navigable on occasion. But it becomes a serious liability in an election year when many members are facing tough contests."

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