Desperate Donald warns GOP senators not to vote against his 'national emergency' scam: 'Be strong and smart'

It's a "trap," and Donald Trump sees it from a mile away. Within 18 days of Tuesday’s House vote to approve a resolution rejecting Trump's imaginary emergency, the GOP-controlled Senate will be forced to weigh in on the measure. And Trump appears to be just a tad anxious about the idea of enough Republican senators joining with Democrats to pass the resolution of disapproval through the Senate.

"I hope our great Republican Senators don’t get led down the path of weak and ineffective Border Security," Trump tweeted Monday morning, telegraphing his worst fear for the whole world to see. "Be strong and smart, don’t fall into the Democrats 'trap' of Open Borders and Crime!”

It would take just four GOP Senate votes to pass the measure blocking Trump’s emergency declaration if all 47 Senate Democrats vote in favor of it. That's a distinct possibility, with more than a handful of Republican senators already having expressed their discomfort with Trump doing an end run around Congress to get roughly $6 billion for his border wall that lawmakers explicitly voted not to give him.

Trump has already promised to veto the resolution "100 percent," as he said last week. Garnering the two-thirds majority in both chambers to override his veto is a much taller order.

But from a strategic standpoint, the ultimate fate of the resolution isn’t the only thing that matters here. Splitting the Senate GOP caucus partially against Trump, especially when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging his senators to support Trump, would be an opening for Democrats. The less unified the Republican party is heading into 2020, the better. Infighting is good for the opposition.

Plus, how embarrassing for Trump, who’s facing the prospect of not only failing to get the money in the first place, but then also being symbolically censured by members of his own party. If there's one thing Trump can't stand, it's disloyalty, and he's already loaded for bear on this vote. We're about to see which Republican senators stand by their supposed principles against executive power grabs and how many just cave to Trump to avoid his ire. Both votes hold strategic upsides for Democrats and pitfalls for Republicans.