WASHINGTON — After demanding Department of Homeland Security funding be coupled with an overhaul of U.S. elections at the start of the week, President Donald Trump has Senate Republicans depressed as TSA lines grow alongside the anger of their constituents.
“I'm kind of discouraged,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) told Raw Story.
“I'm out of words,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Raw Story.
“I literally do not know how this is going to end,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story. “No idea.”
After outsourcing their constitutionally-mandated power of the purse to Trump some 40 days ago, Republicans are starting to realize the president’s less concerned with funding TSA, the Coast Guard and other critical agencies than he is with passing the SAVE Act, which would upend local election laws by mandating voter IDs and curtailing vote-by-mail.
“It's impossible”
But few elected Republicans seem willing to tell the president he’s misguided, even as White House aides seem afraid to tell the emperor he’s naked.
"I'm suggesting strongly to the Republican Party, don't make any deal on anything," Trump said in Memphis on Monday. "The most important thing we can have is what's called the SAVE America Act. Don't make any deal on anything unless you include voter ID, and you have to be a citizen to vote."
But Trump’s demand to combine DHS funding with his prized SAVE Act remains dead on arrival in the bipartisan confines of Capitol Hill.
“It's impossible,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story. “That's why it's not going to happen. I mean, at the end of the day, we've got to get enough votes on board to get DHS funding done.”
Tillis is retiring, and he wishes he could bring a slew of White House aides with him as he hits the exit because he says they’re only hurting the Republican cause as is.
“People need to be able to speak truth to him,” Tillis said. “His advisors are doing him a disservice by saying there's even a path for that. There is no path.”
While Republican congressional leaders are blaming the progressive left for demanding untenable ICE reforms — like unmasking agents — Democrats say the president himself is to blame for derailing the effort to separate most ICE funding from other parts of the DHS budget, including TSA, as some GOP senators have said.
“A number of them have mentioned on TV that they brought a plan to the president, he rejected it, so this is the president's choice,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Raw Story. “He is making the American people suffer at the airports in order to try to extort money for his out of control ICE. It's unacceptable.”
“We're a co-equal branch”
For more than a month now, GOP leaders at the Capitol have put Trump in charge of getting out of this impasse.
Democrats say it’s past time for House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to take back their rightful seats at the negotiating table.
“We're a co-equal branch,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Raw Story. “We do what we do, and then the president does what he does, but we shouldn't be trimming our sails based on our predictions about what he might or might not do.”
As of now, Democrats aren’t backing down.
“I think Republicans will take yes for an answer,” Kaine said. “We're trying to fund the agencies at the levels that they themselves negotiated, so I think it will dawn on them that they should take yes for an answer.”