GOP 'extremely frustrated' with Trump acting 'against his own interests': reporters

President Donald Trump's agenda has seemingly stalled five months ahead of the midterm elections, according to a pair of congressional reporters, and he's not doing himself any favors in the time he's got left with Republican majorities.

A growing coalition of Republican senators is breaking ranks with the 79-year-old president in a narrowly divided Senate after engineering the defeats of Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX), and Punchbowl's Andrew Desiderio told "CNN News Central" that Trump has hurt himself in other ways.

"Look, this isimmigration enforcement funding, this is something that unites Republicans," Desiderio said. "It's a key agendaitem of the president. It was ona glide path until, of course,this quote, unquote anti-weaponization fund was createdas a result of that settlementfrom the president's lawsuitagainst the IRS for theunauthorized leak of his taxreturns, and Republicans are ata moment right now wherethey're dealing with not only anunpopular president, but anunpopular president whocontinues to knock off some oftheir own colleagues. I'mreferring, of course, to Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, and in thecase of Sen. Cornyn, youknow, leaving Republicans with aflawed candidate in Ken Paxtonand having to spend hundreds ofmillions of dollars more in November just to keep a red seatred."

"So what Republicans arefrustrated at, especially in the Senate, is that the presidentappears to be doing things that are directly against his owninterests," Desiderio added, "not only stalling hisown legislative agenda, butmaking it harder for Republicansto keep control of the Senate,which was supposed to be thesort of the quote, unquote, safechamber in thismidterm year."

Puck's Leigh Ann Caldwell agreed, saying that Republicans returned to Washington, D.C., in a foul mood.

"They're comingback from their Memorial Daybreak, and usually when membersgo home things cool off andthey come back and they're inbetter moods," Caldwell said. "That is not thecase this time. They areextremely frustrated with this White House, especiallysince while they were gone, their friend and theircolleague John Cornyn wasdefeated by Ken Paxton, and itjust really poured more salt inthese wounds."

"They're having a moment wherethey're having to figure outhow they work with or sometimesagainst a president to preserve their own political interests,because they finally realized after all of these years thatperhaps the president does nothave their best interests inheart," she added. "What's notable is theirpast, most of these mostcompetitive primaries, and sonow they're able to act with alittle bit more independence, which could they think provemore beneficial in a generalelection? But it's going tobe a really difficult time forthese Senate Republicans rightnow as they try to navigate a heavy-handed president."

- YouTubeyoutu.be