Trump obsession causing 'painful disarray' for Republicans

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 26, 2018 President Donald Trump gestures to emphasize an issue at a press conference held at the Lotte Palace Hotel in the Villard Room

Semafor writer Burgess Everett reports that Trump is being throttled by the specter of calamitous midterm elections, and he’s taking his terror to his Republican enablers in the House and Senate.

“The Republican Congress is consumed by a daunting, nearly impossible task: Satisfying President Donald Trump’s desire for new federal voter ID legislation,” writes Everett.

Trump’s ever sinking poll numbers are plaguing him, and he’s acting as if the only way he can reverse impending November disaster is to exclude as many Democrats and Independent voters from the polls as possible.

But Trump’s latest ploy to block unwanted voters from the polls is the SAVE America Act, and his determination is twisting his party into pretzels as he threatens to stall all legislation unless his legislative salvation lands on his desk.

“Trump’s top priority is causing painful divisions among congressional Republicans, slowing down the bipartisan housing bill that could give him a cost-of-living victory to tout,” said Everett. Trump is also “heaping pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune” to overcome a Democrat block on the SAVE act by either killing the filibuster or forcing Democrats to hold the Senate floor for months with a ‘talking’ filibuster.

“GOP senators and aides described disarray behind the scenes this week as the party agonizes over how to take up the voter ID and citizenship bill next week while keeping Trump happy,” Everett said. “Republicans have a major math problem: Of their 53 senators, at least four are opposed to the talking filibuster, and even more oppose killing the filibuster.

Opposition is obvious in that if Republicans overhaul the filibuster Democrats will be sure to kick Republicans into the woods with the same overhaul when they take the Senate. Some centrist Republicans, or Republicans from swing states, don’t like Trump’s SAVE Act anyway — so killing the filibuster might deliver poor returns.

“[I]t is a mistake, in my judgment, to expand the bill to include any kinds of restrictions on state’s abilities to set the rules for absentee ballot,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Semafor.

Two other Republicans, speaking anonymously for fear of angering the party’s vengeful leader, say Trump’s shortsighted crusade would backfire on Republicans. One told Semafor they worry the push to curtail mail-in voting: “would disenfranchise a lot of our elderly. A lot of Republicans use mail-in ballots.”

Another complained, essentially, that the ignorant are leading the blind on writing the thing.

“I don’t think they have all the right people in writing the bill,” said the second anonymous source. “They should have involved people that have actually worked in elections before,” this GOP senator said. “Some of the issues need to be resolved before we move forward with it. But the public’s demanding it.”

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