President Donald Trump's out-of-the-blue decision to attack Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has left Republican campaign advisers furious, with one strategist warning it's an "enormous disruption" in the final weeks before the midterms.
According to The Hill, Trump's move over a stalled bill to establish year-round daylight saving time caught Senate Republicans off guard. The president published Cotton's cellphone number on his Truth Social account, which has more than 13 million followers, in what The Hill called "doxing." The post is throwing an unexpected twist into the Arkansas Republican's reelection race and sets up a fierce fight in the Senate this fall over the biannual changing of clocks.
"Tom Cotton, a friend of mine, is holding up a very important Bill," Trump wrote, according to Mediaite. "For some reason, Tom is stopping the Bill and, in the Senate, it's very easy to do, it only takes one!"
One Senate Republican strategist, who requested anonymity, questioned whether the president is throwing a "brushback pitch" at a rising conservative star who may be the next Senate GOP leader, trying to get him in line, according to the report.
"The chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence gets a lot of important calls. I imagine he's had to turn that phone off and contact known associates with a new phone number. It is mind-bogglingly stupid of this administration in the midst of a disastrous campaign to focus on this," the strategist said.
"It's not like the Senate can suddenly come back into session and pass this bill," the strategist continued. "Tom Cotton has a pretty good argument for why he doesn't like the bill."
The source also had a warning for the White House. "Whichever stupid staffer that put this in front of [the president] did not think about the fact that for the next two years you're going to need every single Senate Republican to band together against impeachment, against subpoenas," they told The Hill, noting that Republicans are expected to lose Senate seats, and possibly their majority, next month.
A former GOP aide hypothesized that Trump may be trying to influence a future leadership race. "This might be a way for him to s‑‑‑ on Cotton's leadership race," the source said, speculating that Cotton could make a bid for leader if Majority Leader John Thune retires after this year's election.