Congressional Republicans can never truly be counted on to come through when the temperature rises. That’s why President Trump should start operating now with the assumption that they may very well vote to remove him from office.
One line from a Washington Post report on Sunday says everything the president needs to know: “Trump’s decision to host next year’s G-7 meeting at his private golf club only increased the anxiety among GOP lawmakers, some of whom have grown weary of having to develop new talking points almost daily.”
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The resting state of the modern elected Republican is anxious and weary. Make them do work such as writing talking points, and it only compounds the issue.
Up until late last week, Trump could have sat pretty comfortably knowing that even if House Democrats vote to impeach him for asking a foreign government to investigate corruption, Senate Republicans would never convict and remove him in a trial.
He can’t be so sure of that now. Because since then, he’s made himself look ridiculous on two fronts: He had his chief of staff walk back a perfectly appropriate response to questions about a “quid pro quo” with Ukraine, and then he decided to change the location of next year’s G-7 summit because the original venue, his own golf resort, upset the national media and made Senate Republicans a little queasy.
Oh gosh, now Republicans will have to actually do some work! Now they’ll have to — gulp — “develop new talking points almost daily!”
I don’t care where the G-7 is hosted, because I’m not invited. And I don’t care that the White House is tying itself into knots over an impeachment that we always knew was coming, because Democrats hate him that much and have been looking for an excuse to impeach him even before he was inaugurated. But perhaps Trump should care that Senate Republicans, the only people separating him from political death, are apparently reaching their breaking point.
They’re not justified in feeling “weary,” as if that emotion should be an anomaly in Washington. Their job is, at least in theory, to fight for the country. Why shouldn’t they feel weary? But if Senate Republicans have had enough, Trump would be smart to start acting like he has something to lose.
He needs them. He can’t afford to keep pissing them off.
