The week began with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger. It went only downhill from there for Senate Republicans.The turbulent week ended on Thursday, when senators headed for the exit, following contentious closed-door meetings with administration officials. GOP leadership decided it would rather pause deliberation over the reconciliation legislation, rather than risk a full-scale rebellion over politically toxic provisions. Lawmakers won’t return until June 1, after a more than weeklong Memorial Day recess.
“It was something that was supposed to be very narrow, targeted, focused, clean, straightforward,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “It’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us.”
Thune’s predecessor offered a more blunt assessment.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former longtime GOP leader, said of the DOJ fund in a rare statement. “Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick.”
In the Oval Office, Trump deflected whether he was “losing control” of the GOP-led Senate.
