President Donald Trump's latest string of controversial decisions and bad publicity is enraging Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who feel it's starting to disrupt their efforts to pass major legislation.
According to Punchbowl News' Andrew Desiderio, "Senate Republicans [are] very frustrated that Trump [and] his admin are dropping these things seemingly without regard for what’s happening in the Senate at that moment."
A key moment of frustration, he noted, was the announcement of the "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to pay out his political allies after Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS, which generated days of bad publicity and put Republican lawmakers on the defensive — at precisely the moment when they needed maximal unity to pass a Homeland Security reconciliation bill, which required oversight from the Judiciary Committee.
The administration has now dropped this fund, at least for the time being, after multiple federal courts pumped the brakes on it.
This week, Desiderio said, Trump threw another lit match into a powder keg by nominating longtime partisan loyalist Bill Pulte for Director of National Intelligence, despite having none of the qualifications for this role required under statute. Once again, Republicans found themselves split on the issue as they are trying to get through the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — the very bill that authorizes the powers Pulte would oversee.
According to recent reports, Democrats are exploring the votes to block any passage of FISA until the Trump administration reverses course on appointing Pulte.
