The GOP Judgement On Trump - “It’s impossible to see a scenario under which this is sustainable under a four-year period”
GOP Doubts And Anxieties About Trump Burst Into The Open
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s racially fraught comments about a deadly neo-Nazi rally have thrust into the open some Republicans’ deeply held doubts about his competency and temperament, in an extraordinary public airing of worries and grievances about a sitting president by his own party.
Behind the high-profile denunciations voiced this week by GOP senators once considered Trump allies, scores of other, influential Republicans began to express grave concerns about the state of the Trump presidency. In interviews with Associated Press reporters across nine states, 25 Republican politicians, party officials, advisers and donors expressed worries about whether Trump has the self-discipline and capability to govern successfully.
Eric Cantor, the former House majority leader from Virginia, said Republicans signaled this week that Trump’s handling of the Charlottesville protests was “beyond just a distraction.”
“It was a turning point in terms of Republicans being able to say, we’re not even going to get close to that,” Cantor said.
Chip Lake, a Georgia-based GOP operative who did not vote for Trump in the general election, raised the prospect of the president leaving office before his term is up.
“It’s impossible to see a scenario under which this is sustainable under a four-year period,” Lake said.
Trump’s handling of the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, has shaken his presidency unlike any of the other self-created crises that have rattled the White House during his seven months in office. Business leaders have bolted from White House councils, wary of being associated with the president. Military leaders distanced themselves from Trump’s assertion that “both sides” — the white supremacists and the counter-protesters — were to blame for the violence that left one protester dead. And some members of Trump’s own staff were outraged by his combative assertion that there were “very fine people” among those marching with the white supremacists, neo-Nazis and KKK members.
Importantly, the Republicans interviewed did not line up behind some course of action or an organized break with the president. Some expressed hope the recent shakeup of White House advisers might help Trump get back in control of his message and the GOP agenda.
Still, the blistering and blunt statements from some Republicans have marked a new phase. Until now, the party has largely kept its most troubling doubts about Trump to whispered, private conversations, fearful of alienating the president’s loyal supporters and upending long-sought GOP policy goals.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a foreign policy ally of the Trump White House, delivered the sharpest criticism of Trump, declaring that the president “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to” in dealing with crises.
Corker’s comments were echoed in the interviews with two dozen Republican officials after Trump expressed his views in Tuesday’s press conference. More than half spoke on the record, while the others insisted on anonymity in order to speak candidly about the man who leads their party and remains popular with the majority of GOP voters.
A handful defended Trump without reservation. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, an early supporter of the president, said he “proudly” stands with Trump and said he was succeeding despite a “constant barrage of negative attacks from the left.”
But others said recent events had shifted the dynamic between the president and his party.
“I was never one that was convinced that the president had the character to lead this nation, but I was certainly willing to stand by the president on critical issues once he was elected,” said Clarence Mingo, a Republican state treasurer candidate in Ohio. “Now, even where good conservative policies are concerned, that progress is all negated because of his inability to say and do the right things on fundamental issues.”
In Kentucky, Republican state senator Whitney Westerfield called Trump’s comments after the Charlottesville protests “more than a gaffe.”
“I’m concerned he seems to firmly believe in what he’s saying about it,” Westerfield said.
Trump has survived criticism from establishment Republicans before, most notably when GOP lawmakers across the country distanced themselves from him in the final weeks of the campaign following the release of a video in which the former reality television star is heard making predatory sexual comments about women. Many of those same lawmakers ultimately voted for Trump and rallied around his presidency after his stunning victory.
GOP efforts to align with Trump have largely been driven by political realities. The president still commands loyalty among his core supporters, though some recent polls have suggested a slight weakening there. And while his style is often controversial, many of his statements are often in line with those voters’ beliefs, including his support after Charlottesville for protecting Confederate monuments.
Brian Westrate, a small business owner in western Wisconsin who is also chairman of the 3rd Congressional District Republican Party, said Trump supporters long ago decided to embrace the unconventional nature of his presidency.
“I don’t think that anything has fundamentally changed between now and when the election was,” he said. “The president remains an ill-artful, ill-timed speaker who uses Twitter too often. That’s not new. … The president is still the same guy and the left is still the same left.”
Some White House officials do privately worry about slippage in Trump’s support from congressional Republicans, particularly in the Senate. GOP senators couldn’t cobble together the 50 votes needed to pass a health care overhaul and that same math could continue to be a problem in the fall, as Republicans work on reforming the tax code, which is realistically the party’s last opportunity to pass major legislation in 2017.
Tom Davis, a Republican state senator representing a coastal South Carolina district, said that when Trump can move beyond the crisis of the moment, he articulates policies that could help the country’s economic situation. But Davis said Trump is also part of the reason not much progress has been made.
“To his discredit, he’s been maddeningly inconsistent in advancing those policies, which is part of the reason so little has been accomplished in our nation’s capital these past six months,” Davis said.
Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist who most recently tried to help Jeb Bush win the 2016 GOP presidential primary, said the early optimism some Republicans felt about their ability to leverage Trump’s presidency has all but evaporated in the days following the Charlottesville protests.
“Most party regulars have gone from an initial feeling of guarded optimism that Trump would be able to stumble along while Mitch (McConnell) and (Paul) Ryan do the big lifting and pass our Republican agenda to a current feeling of deep frustration and despair,” Murphy said.
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Barrow reported from Atlanta. AP writers Julie Bykowicz in Washington, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Adam Beam in Frankfort, Kentucky, contributed to this report.
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Trump's presidency is over.
The question now is how much damage will he do to America before he leaves.
I respectfully disagree, never underestimate this man.
He has many cards yet to play.
Unfortunately, I doubt he's going anywhere soon.
(Except around the world and on vacation (s))
On our dime.
He will never achieve popularity with a majority.
He will not achieve his signature goals.
He will not finish his term in office.
keep obsessing about statues and defending those who throw piss at cops as being heroes above criticism and you may drive his support to 50%
Sean , you are a smart guy. You know we have only begun to scratch the surface of Donald Trump making a fool out of himself.
Maybe. But unless democrats offer a positive alternative, he'll stay where he is no,matter what he does.
Appearing to give cover to Neo Nazis and Klansmen like Richard Spencer and David Duke has permanently damaged his hopes to ever be a popular president. People also know that he is not psychologically stable. Coupled with a "Russia" investigation that will show him with highly questionable ties to Russian banksters, and the fact that he has been compromised by Russian intelligence, will force him from office long before his four years are up.
THe democrats have no power to change this.
The republicans aren't willing to
I see NO ONE Stopping this man... NO ONE
Many have already tried.
On he moves.
(Enter Godzilla soundtrack)
Our infrastructure may never be the same...
He is stopped already. Oh he can still do damage, but his chance for a successful presidency is gone.
5 more charities drop Mar-a-Lago fundraisers
Five more charities announced Friday they were dropping plans for fundraising events at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, as the administration continues to feel the backlash from business groups after the president’s handling of the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend.
Susan G. Komen, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit that raises money for breast cancer research; the International Red Cross; The Salvation Army; the Autism Association of Palm Beach County; and Big Dog Ranch Rescue in Loxahatchee Groves, Florida, all said they were pulling events from Mar-a-Lago’s upcoming winter fundraising schedule, according to local reports .
They joined the Cleveland Clinic, the American Cancer Society and the American Friends of Magen David Adom, all of which announced Thursday their decision to move their events off-site, bringing the total of charities to pull events from Trump’s estate to eight.
The cancellations serve as the latest blow to the president during a week in which he’s seen several of his advisory policy councils crumble over his handling of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. All members of Trump’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned en masse Friday morning, citing the president’s equivocation on hate groups as the impetus for their departure
Even Carl Icahn left the scene.
And I think we will see a lot more jumping ship in the coming months. Trump has no one but himself to blame for his downfall, yet, he will be sure to blame everyone else. He is indeed his own worst enemy and too arrogant and blinded by power to see it.
Just my opinion.
Trump's heart and sole tweet: President urges the nation to 'heel and be stronger than ever before' before correcting embarrassing misspelling
No one proof reads presidential tweets? How silly of me to wonder why. Trump is not presidential, that's why.
Total embarrassment.
perhaps the heel was once again mirror watching while tweeting
I'm waiting for him to spell country wrong. That could be interesting.
Of course... "Heart And Sole" is also a spelling mistake...
Misspelling heal twice in one tweet is quite a feet.
Misspelling heal twice in one tweet is quite a feet.
Hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should be ashamed of yourself!
Let trump be trump.
Tweet tweet away
A rare peek into the mind of a megalomaniac.
I agree, the more he tweets the more he reveals about his true self. Without those tweets, how would ordinary people really know what kind of person he is and what it truly in his heart and mind.
Donald Trump is a disorganized simpleton who is doing nothing other than flying by the seat of his pants from one day to the next. However, the fact that those who hated him before the election now hate him even more (establishment republicans and batshit crazy democrats) really isn't hurting him. If the alternative to this fool is an even more foolish democrat supporting things like sanctuary cities and tranny soldiers, then he could be re-elected.
Behind the high-profile denunciations voiced this week by GOP senators once considered Trump allies, scores of other, influential Republicans began to express grave concerns about the state of the Trump presidency.
... but still not voting against him... Just yammering...
We may see a temporary defection within the GOP from those who are up for re-election from Trump and/or the WH until after the election if they feel that the waters in their district are a bit too rough at the time of their election. But, I feel that the majority of them will promptly return to Trumps defense if they win re-election.
Just my own thoughts on the subject.