Who Within The Republican Party Caucus Leadership
Are Going To Stand-up???
Donald Trump is not a person with friends. He’s far too much of a narcissist and ogre to actually be able to achieve that. The people around him and supporting him are not his friends—they’re using him to advance their careers and/or their political agendas. With that in mind, this story demonstrates the heartburn Trump is giving fellow Republicans.
For example, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) who kind of went there: “The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.” Unstable and incompetent is what any honest and unbiased actor observing politics would call Trump, having watched him in office. It’s astounding to hear from a Republican. Then there’s Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the only black Republican in the Senate, who said he could not stand behind the “indefensible” comments Trump made in his unhinged Tuesday press conference. He “suggested that Trump had squandered the moral authority of his office—a critical commodity vital in binding the nation together in a time of crisis or national tragedy that also helps to sustain the power of any presidency.”
But what’s really going to get his goat is what James Murdoch, the 21st Century Fox CEO and son of Rupert Murdoch, said in denouncing Trump’s statements. “I can’t even believe I have to write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis,” Murdoch wrote. “Or Klansmen, or terrorists. Democrats, Republicans, and others must all agree on this, and it compromises nothing for them to do so.” Murdoch is a “close informal adviser” to Trump, but more he’s head of Fox. Fox is Trump’s happy place, where he goes to have his delusions of grandeur reinforced. This, and the abandonment of him by the CEOs he had collected for his advisory committees, is what’s going to hurt, what’s going to drive him further ’round the bend.
But what matters to the nation is not Trump’s hurt feelings, but what the Republicans in charge of Congress are going to do about the fact that he is unstable, incompetent, and indefensible. Thus far, it appears to be nothing. There’s no indication yet of willingness from House Speaker Paul Ryan or Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do what’s necessary to protect the nation from the damage Trump is inflicting. There’s no indication from the rank-and-file Republicans in Congress that they will demand their leaders do something. Up until Corker and Scott made their comments, no Republican senator was willing to talk to the media about the unraveling of their president.
This is ominous, because September is looming, and September is going to be “brutal.” Funding government, raising the debt ceiling, funding the Children’s Health Insurance Fund before the money runs out at the end of the month, and flood insurance, too—all that has to happen in September. This Republican Party—with the Freedom Caucus maniacs in the House and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul in the Senate—has already proven somewhat less than competent in getting the big stuff done. Now they’ve got to reckon with an out-of-control White House.
The big test for Ryan and McConnell is looming, fast. What are they going to be willing to do to the country so that they can get their tax cuts and federal judges out of Trump. How much damage are they going to allow him to inflict in the advancement of their extremist agenda?
Let’s all pray for our country because God is the only being standing between us and total meltdown and destruction!!!
Edward Bishop III The Money Connection
“Follow The Money People”