Can the Republicans really rein in Trump?
We can no longer safely ignore the “cries for help” emanating from within the Trump administration, said Michael Gerson in The Washington Post. And one of the most desperate ones came last week from the Republican senator Bob Corker, who highlighted the concerns of aides struggling to manage the volatile moods, lack of focus and destructive whims of the president. “I know for a fact,” said Corker, “that every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain [Trump]… A lot of people think that there is some kind of ‘good cop, bad cop’ act under way, but that’s just not true.” The scary reality, declared Corker, is that the White House is “an adult day-care centre” for an irrational man who treats the presidency like “a reality show”, and who, with his reckless baiting of North Korea, could be setting the nation “on the path to World War III”.
“Good for Corker for speaking up,” said the Los Angeles Times. Now let’s hear from all the many other Republicans in Congress who feel the same way. Don’t hold your breath, said Jim Newell on Slate. Corker, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, is not standing for election again, so has nothing to fear from speaking out. But other Republican senators are uncomfortably aware that Trump’s belligerent former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, along with his populist Breitbart news outlet, is drawing up a hit list of Republicans to try to oust in next year’s Senate races. “Honesty from sitting Republicans about the danger Trump poses to the country won’t get Trump removed, but could well get those sitting Republicans removed. They can’t win.”
If nothing else, they should at least curb the powers of the presidency, said Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times. In July, Republicans voted overwhelmingly for a bill that limited Trump’s ability to unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia. Now, they should consider legislation that would bar the president from launching a first nuclear strike without a declaration of war by Congress. Curbing Trump’s power to launch nuclear weapons on his authority alone, and within minutes, would be a “far more aggressive step”, but the risks more than justify it. “Now that Corker has admitted that Trump cannot be trusted with the power he holds, he and other Republicans have no excuse not to try to take that power away.”