'Imperiled' GOP senators beg Trump to zip it as midterms loom

Charles Hilu, a writer with the conservative National Review, reports that Senate Republicans and other lawmakers are clenching their fists at President Donald Trump’s inability to shut his face 80 days before the midterms.

“In a typical midterm year, the August recess serves as a vital time for those up for reelection to pitch their record to their constituents. For most presidents with a governing trifecta, it’s a time to get in messaging lockstep with members of their party, touting their accomplishments as a united front,” wrote Hilu. “Donald Trump, however, is not most presidents.”

The very day the Senate came back into session for two-weeks before its generous recess, Trump called for GOP Senate leadership to cancel the month-long break if it did not pass his stalled SAVE America Act. When that didn’t work, Trump attacked Majority Leader John Thune as not being a proper leader the chamber’s Republicans. He also further suggested that certain GOP senators were resisting controversial attorney general nominee Todd Blanche (Trump’s personal defense attorney) because they were bitter that he would not support them for reelection.

None of this is helpful to Republicans in November, senators told NR. And it would be awful nice if the president would just be quiet.

“Every day that a Republican in the White House criticizes a Republican over here, it’s undermining that Republican’s ability to get out the voters who will get out for President Trump,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told National Review. “By inference, when the president makes a critical statement of a member of the Senate, he’s probably convincing one or two people who really only want to go out to vote for him [not] to even waste their time coming out in November.”

Hilu points out that Tillis opted not to run for reelection after Trump demanded a more Trumpy Republican run against him in the primary, but “his comments reflect a growing frustration among Republicans with the president’s attitude toward the midterms.” And “some feel he has not been sufficiently helpful to his party in the lead up to an election that, if historical trends hold, is set to be difficult for the GOP to win.”

“He does that at our peril and at the peril of us continuing to be in the personnel business come next year,” Tillis told NR.

Indicators suggest Tillis is not the only GOP senator with beef against Trump’s big mouth, said Hilu.

In a recent meeting of Senate Republicans and GOP-aligned political operatives, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) asked when Trump “would begin attacking Democrats rather than Republicans,” according to Politico. Daines may be willing to admit this because he is also retiring at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Trump is showing no obligation to support his Republican comrades in their reelection battles. Trump claimed voters who chose him in 2024 were solely angry at his party.

“They’re angry at Republicans, but they’re not angry at me,” said Trump.