Twit snit at GOPers
Zings at Graham, Flake
President Trump lashed out at two veteran GOP senators during an early-morning tweetstorm Thursday — further alienating members of his own party whom he’ll need to advance his agenda.
In a daybreak tweet, he slammed Sen. Lindsey Graham as a publicity hound and a liar.
“Publicity seeking Lindsey Graham falsely stated that I said there is moral equivalency between the KKK, neoNazis & white supremacists and people like Ms. Heyer,” he wrote in reference to Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman killed in Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville, Va. “Such a disgusting lie. He just can’t forget his election trouncing. The people of South Carolina will remember.”
Graham had accused Trump of taking “a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally.”
The president also went after Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, seeming to endorse a primary opponent, former state Sen. Kelli Ward.
“Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake. Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He’s toxic!” the president wrote on Twitter.
Flake had tweeted on Wednesday, “We can’t claim to be the party of Lincoln if we equivocate in condemning white supremacy.”
One early Trump ally in the Senate even questioned the president’s fitness for office.
Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,” Sen. Bob Corker said after an event in his home state of Tennessee.
Corker also warned: “Our nation is going to go through great peril” if Trump cannot show that he understands “what has made this nation great.”
One analyst said most GOP lawmakers would probably steer clear of a public fight with the president.
“Fueling an all-out war with your own party’s irascible president when you need his signature to avoid defaulting on the debt and keeping the government open might restrain them from calling him out directly,” Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, told Bloomberg.
“Keep in mind,” she said, “that no matter how low Trump’s approval ratings, [House Speaker Paul] Ryan’s and [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s are lower. Stopping short of explicitly condemning Trump provides a veneer of insulation from hardcore Trump supporters.”