President-elect Trump’s early morning tweet calling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer the “head clown” of the Democratic Party is already sending the discourse on Capitol Hill to new lows as Democrats rush to Schumer’s defense and Republicans awkwardly try to justify the move.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Hillary Clinton’s running mate in her failed bid against Trump, suggested that mental issues are behind Trump’s “clown” comment.
When asked about the insult against Trump, Kaine referred to Trump’s praise for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who faces an arrest warrant for a rape in Sweden, as well as the president-elect’s open distrust for the intelligence community over its finding that the Russian government is responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee.
“He’s taking Assange’s case, who’s wanted for sex crimes in Sweden over the Intel community? And he’s calling Chuck Schumer a name?” Kaine told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t know – maybe he needs to regulate the meds or something with that guy.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., was more succinct: “He calls a man who’s wanted for sex crimes his hero, he calls Putin his hero, but wants to attack a U.S. senator? I think Chuck Schumer should be proud.”
Kaine suggested that Schumer could handle the presidential heckling but it would have a corrosive effect on the Trump administration’s ability to win over Democrats for bipartisan compromises down the road, votes that will be necessary to pass his $1 trillion infrastructure plan, for instance.
“It’s not gonna help him,” Kaine predicted. “It doesn’t bother Schumer at all. He’s a big guy.”
Kaine then predicted Trump would ultimately lose in the court of public opinion.
“At the end of the day, the office of the president gets respect based on the performance of the person in the office – and I’m talking about from the public — I don’t think this is going to play with the public,” Kaine said.
The clown comment and another recent Twitter rant in which he complained about the transition treatment he was receiving from the Obama administration also drew a strong rebuke from Vice President Joe Biden who told him in an interview with PBS NewsHour: “Grow up, Donald.”
“Grow up, Donald. Grow up. Time to be an adult,” he said. “You’re president. You’ve got to do something. Show us what you have. You’re going to propose legislation. We’re going to get to debate it. Let the public decide. Let them vote in Congress. Let’s see what happens.”
The most recent Twitter jeers from Trump put most Republicans on the spot to try to defend the name-calling or mildly criticize it without risking the appearance of directly chastising their incoming president.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., another member of the GOP leadership, shared a bit of honest humor about Trump’s mean tweets, saying, “You just hope it’s not personally directed to you.”
“The issues are big – you are going to have some big personalities and it’s going to be a different way of doing things that people aren’t accustomed to around here,” Thune said. “I don’t condone name-calling or anything like that. I think you want to be respectful when you have differences.”
Trump, however, also got an assist from an unlikely source.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Trump’s chief rival for the GOP nomination whom he notoriously dubbed “Lyin’ Ted” during debates and on the campaign trail, said he wouldn’t give “a running commentary on every comment from the president-elect” when asked about Trump’s “clown” comment.
He then seemed to shift into attacking Schumer, a New York Democrat, for provoking the insult.
“What I will say is that Chuck Schumer has been declaring defiant opposition to the will of the voters as expressed on Election Day,” he told the Examiner. “Schumer has indicated that the Democrats intend to do nothing but obstruct and filibuster and try to prevent meaningful actions to bring back jobs and raise wages to lift the burdens of government on working men and women.”
Other Democrats, as well as Republicans, argued that the whole idea of a president mocking senators and lawmakers over Twitter is the unfortunate brave new reality of Washington with Trump in charge.
“Name-calling is really beneath the presidency,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said. “I’m disappointed, but we need to move forward and seek to govern the country in the best way possible.”
“New York is a rough place politically and I’m sure [Schumer’s] heard worse … but I think he will rise above it – he’s a bigger person,” he added.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who serves as the GOP’s majority whip, at first said that deciding whether Trump should have called Schumer a “clown” was above his “paygrade”
“The president and his tweets are obviously something only he controls and it’s a free country. He can say what he thinks,” Cornyn said.
“I’ve heard some pretty tough talk up here on Capitol Hill by Democratic leaders and other directed at sitting presidents and other officials so I don’t see it impinging our ability to get things done,” he said, quickly adding that it’s not “something necessarily I would do.”
Trump early Thursday morning unleashed a series of tweets blaming Democrats for the failures of the Affordable Care Act, arguing that they have no desire to fix it. Trump was responding to critical remarks Schumer made Wednesday about Trump and other Republicans’ failure to put forward a plan to replace the healthcare law before pledging to repeal it quickly this year.
“The Democrats, lead by head clown Chuck Schumer, know how bad Obamacare is and what a mess they are in,” Trump said in the tweet “Instead of working to fix it, they do the typical political thing and BLAME,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
When asked about the comment early Thursday, Schumer seemed a little ruffled, lecturing the president-elect that talking about repealing Obamacare is “serious, serious stuff.”
“People’s health is at stake. And people’s lives are at stake,” he said.
“I’d say to the president-elect and the Republicans that this is not a time for calling names,” he said. “It’s time for them to step up to the plate if they want to repeal and show us what they’d replace it with.”
Trump’s seething Twitter vitriol toward Schumer sharply contrasts his more complimentary earlier comments. The mercurial billionaire can be name-calling one day and praising the same person the next.
Trump has also previously tweeted that Schumer is “smarter” and “more cunning” than his predecessor, Harry Reid, the longtime democratic leader who retired at the end of last year.
Four days ago, Trump even reportedly told Schumer that he likes him more than the two top Republican leaders in Congress because both wanted him to lose even though he was leading the Republican primary field for months.
