Donald Trump's single-minded obsession with getting the SAVE America Act passed when no one in Congress believes it will come within a stone's throw of getting 60 votes in the Senate has some GOP insiders wondering what is going on.
MS NOW's Hayes Brown captured Trump's destructive pattern, writing, "President Donald Trump has exactly two modes: unfocused and obsessed. Most things in this world activate the first mode. But there are a handful of exceptions that become deeply ingrained in his mind and nothing can shake them loose."
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the matter of the doomed SAVE Act.
According to Brown, when Trump's own administration prepared a signing ceremony to celebrate a bipartisan housing affordability bill on Wednesday, only for the president to refuse to follow through, Republican insiders were forced to recognize they are on their own.
Left to explain what appears inexplicable, one resigned senior GOP aide told MS NOW: "We saw glimpses of this during Trump's first administration, but never in my lifetime have I seen a president so deliberately attempt to lose majorities for his own party."
Hayes notes that Trump's Capitol visit on Wednesday was supposed to flip votes on the SAVE Act and persuade Republicans to nuke the filibuster, and it was worse than a flop, with another Senate GOP aide suggesting Trump "left with the same number of votes that existed when he arrived—possibly fewer."
"The president’s obsession with the SAVE America Act has blinded him to political reality," the MS NOW analyst wrote. "He’s incorrectly spent weeks claiming that failure to pass the bill will be the GOP’s ruin come November. Now, rather than spending the next few weeks proving that they deserve to keep their majorities, Trump has left GOP lawmakers paralyzed. In doing so, he has helped transform his flawed prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy."