GOP senator bashes Trump for texting warning tweets to Republicans before border vote instead of talking to them

In an interview with Politico, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) claimed President Donald Trump could have stopped the bleeding of Republican senators abandoning him and voting with Democrats against his emergency declaration on Thursday if he had expended a minimum of effort to reach out to them.

Following a Senate vote that saw 12 Republicans defy the president -- putting him in the position of having to veto the bill -- Politico revealed that Trump had aides text his tweets to senators as a warning.

Thursday morning Trump tweeted, “A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!“

The report states, "Soon after, White House aides began blasting the tweet to GOP senators by text message to remind them of how the president viewed the impending vote, according to senators and aides who received the messages."

Trump's texting gambit failed, which led the GOP's Lee to say the president could have looked better if he had only spoken personally to Republicans who were on the fence.

“He quite possibly could have gotten 50 senators voting no,” explained Lee who had already committed to voting with the Democrats.

Politico notes, "The Republican revolt on the Senate floor followed a haphazard and erratic persuasion effort from Trump that offers a vivid encapsulation of how this White House has struggled to influence Congress."

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