With the government in a shutdown, Defense Secretary James Mattis resigning because he doesn't see eye to eye with an erratic Donald Trump, and the stock market plunging, GOP lawmakers are losing their tempers with the president who has thrown the country into chaos just before Christmas.
According to a report on Politico, Republican senators are breaking ranks with the president after a particularly disastrous week because he wants to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico that many -- including incoming White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney -- consider a boondoggle.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy (R) wasn't afraid of drawing the president's wrath, claiming Trump is veering all over the place.
“Usually out of the president it’s better to have a steady course. You want to be able to draw a bead on where your leader is going to be in a week or two or three. This has not been a steady course. We need a steady course,” Cassidy lectured.
According to Politico, "One Republican senator said his colleagues feel like they’ve been increasingly hijacked by Trump. The senator described the president as increasingly intent on pleasing the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and media allies like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Some Republicans find the juxtaposition between what they consider a reckless foreign policy and a reckless border wall fight to be infuriating."
That senator, who didn't want to be named, bitterly complained, "Syria is crumbling. And we’re talking about a fucking wall.”
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst (R) -- who is also a military veteran -- also joined the pile-on.
“We’re very concerned” about Syria, Ernst stated. “I just think it’s significant. The actions are significant. And I would just love the president to listen to those military advisers and make sure that we’re taking the fight to terrorists overseas, not allowing them to come here.”
Trump has at least one Republican defender in the Senate in Louisiana's John Kennedy, who told Politico, "I don’t see it as chaos,I don’t think the president’s strong feelings about a border wall and border security are surprising to anyone. I’m a big Gen. Mattis fan. I hate to see him go. But presidential advisers come and go.”
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