Conservatives scold GOP Congress for wavering on order

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress might be searching for ways to distance themselves from President Donald Trump’s immigration order without disavowing his tough talk on security, but conservative activists from South Carolina to Florida to Texas have no patience for such nuance.

“This was not some surprise,” said Glenn McCall, the Republican national committeeman from South Carolina. “He campaigned on this. This is something, overwhelmingly, I would say, the folks in the state supported.”

Indeed, the executive order — signed Friday to restrict immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries for several months and to bar refugees for even longer — is in line with what candidate Trump promised.

It was condemned worldwide, as television networks provided blanket coverage of protests at airports in major American cities, and some individuals — including people who work with the U.S. military overseas — were stuck in limbo as officials tried to parse the executive order and a court’s stay.

Meanwhile, members of Congress — not to mention several of Trump’s own nominees for Cabinet positions — were caught off guard by the order, which has since been lambasted by Democrats and some Republicans as being excessively broad.

But Republican activists are now circling the wagons, lashing out at lawmakers who, in their view, were too quick to criticize.

It’s the latest evidence that the post-campaign GOP base is firmly in Trump’s corner, and has little appetite for any questioning of his authority early in his White House tenure, especially by members of his own party. That attitude among activists helps explain why some Republican lawmakers have kept their heads down; even relatively gentle criticism of Trump, especially on a national security or immigration issue, can be politically perilous back home.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., waited until Sunday night to weigh in, offering a joint statement with Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., in which the pair expressed uneasiness about the order and said they had further questions.