President Donald Trump has left the Senate in a state of “dysfunction” and Republicans scrambling over how to recover after he abruptly upended the confirmation of a high-profile Cabinet nominee.Trump’s Wednesday decision to call off Jay Clayton’s hearing to be the next director of national intelligence evoked a fresh wave of frustration from Republicans, who hoped the nominee could break the gridlock on an expired foreign spy program and saw his announcement, which came in the middle of the night and hours before the testimony, as another example of unnecessary chaos.“It’s just another kink in the slinky that makes no sense,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is not seeking reelection in November. “It’s undermining our ability to produce the very results he wants.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) cut short his usual morning remarks to reporters to offer a vague assessment on what’s next for Clayton and overcoming the partisan stalemate to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“We’ll just have to take it a day at a time until we get more clarity on kind of what the White House position is on this,” he said.
The saga was but the latest in a string of what Republicans describe as unforced errors by the White House in recent weeks. Those include requesting security money for Trump’s yet-to-be-built ballroom that was later scrapped, a nixed Department of Justice anti-weaponization fund that could have paid Capitol rioters, and, most recently, appointing Bill Pulte, a top housing official viewed as too loyal to Trump, to take over as temporary head of the U.S. intelligence community.
