Leading GOP senator livid that party 'doing nothing' to confront looming midterm calamity

GOP Senator John Kennedy (LA) is fuming that his own party is not doing enough to prepare representatives for the upcoming midterm election.

The veteran Republican spoke out against the party during an interview with The Hill, in which Kennedy suggested that everyday Americans cannot bank on the Republican Party in November. Kennedy said, "We’re not gonna win the midterm by going to the American people and saying, Look, we passed 11 out of 12 appropriations bills and we confirmed all of President Trump’s nominees.

"That’s not what, when moms and dads lie down to sleep at night and can’t — that’s not what they’re worried about.” They’re worried about the cost of living. … In their minds, they’re tired of selling blood plasma to go grocery shopping.

"I still think that what we ought to be doing is true reconciliation. … I really think that that’s what we ought to be focused on right now. I just want to do something. Doing nothing is very hard.

"I can cite your statistics about inflation and GDP growth and macroeconomics and microeconomics, and how many economists can dance on the head of a pin. I can do all that.

"But what you’re basically arguing to people is: don’t believe your own lying checkbooks. It’s their checkbooks. They’re looking at it. They don’t like what they see, so you’ve got to deal with it. That's how you win elections. And we're not doing any of that."

Fellow GOP reps have taken Kennedy's side and suggested the party is simply not doing enough to win over voters ahead of this year's elections. Senator Tommy Tuberville, who is running to become the next governor of Alabama, suggested the focus is on getting elected rather than highlighting what the party has done for the first two years of Donald Trump's second term.

He said, "Are we doing enough? We’re not doing anything. Everybody’s working on getting elected." Another GOP Senator, James Lankford (R-Okla.), suggested some of his colleagues are "pursuing the tool rather than the task."

Lankford added, "We have to have a clear purpose that we’re trying to accomplish that helps the American people, and there’s not a clearly-defined purpose right now to say this is what it would do and it could actually work through the parliamentarian process."