In the tumultuous biparty political system of the United States, senators are often considered to be the most sedate and reasonable politicians. Secure in their six-year terms, they offer continuity and the much needed stability in Beltway politics. President Trump, however, does not believe in tradition, or normalcy for that matter. In less than a year in office, he has managed to alienate and enrage quite a number of senators, especially from his own party. Presidents keen on legislative priorities try to keep the senators in good humour. President Obama, for instance, worked overtime to cultivate better ties with senators even from the rival camp.
What is happening in Washington over the past few days, however, is remarkable, even by Trump's standards. The president managed to pick a nasty fight with at least three senators, from his own party. His running feud with Senator John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is notorious. Back in 2015, during at a conservative conclave in Iowa, Trump said he did not consider McCain a war hero because he was captured during the Vietnam war. McCain, who was naval pilot, spent six years in a Vietnamese prison camp and was tortured repeatedly. The feud intensified during the summer of this year as McCain voted against repealing and replacing Obamacare, a pet legislative initiative of President Trump.
McCain also did not forget to remind everyone about how Trump evaded draft during Vietnam. He pointedly noted that Trump sought five deferments and one of those was on the basis of a medical certificate saying that he suffered from bone spurs. He has been quite critical of the manner in which Trump was handling issues ranging from his Russia policy to his approach towards families of fallen soldiers. He also poked fun at the president's past and his administrative skills. “He is in the process of making money,” said McCain, appearing in a television show. “I was raised in the concept and belief that duty, honour, country is the lodestar for behaviour that we have to exhibit every single day.” It forced Trump to issue a public warning to McCain, “I'm being very nice.... But at some point, I fight back and it won't be pretty.” McCain, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of brain tumour from which he is unlikely to recover from, kept on laughing for several seconds on TV, when he was told about the president's threat.
Read more: Two Republican senators blast Trump
Yet another Republican senator whom Trump managed to alienate is Bob Corker of Tennessee. Corker, who is retiring next year, is the chairman of the senate foreign relations committee. He had a fallout with Trump over the president's proposed tax cuts. After he was denigrated by Trump in a series of tweets as a “light weight” and a person who “couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee”, Corker responded by calling the Trump White House an adult day care centre. “It is a shame the White House has become an adult daycare centre. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning,” said Corker. The fallout has been unusual because Corker was quite close to Trump during the presidential campaign and was even a contender for the posts of vice president and secretary of state.
In a series of interviews this week Corker said Trump was debasing the nation with his constant lies and name calling. He said the biggest service he was going to do for the next 15 months for the country till he retired from the senate would be to oppose Trump. He called Trump an “utterly untruthful president” and said he would oppose his reelection bid.
Close on the heels of Corker's revolt came the open defiance from yet another Republican senator. On October 24, Jeff Flake, the junior senator from Arizona, chose the floor of the senate to announce his retirement and made a stinging rebuke of Trump. He called the president's behaviour “reckless, outrageous and undignified”. “I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr President, I will not be complicit,” said Flake. The outgoing senator also wrote a hard hitting op-ed piece in The Washington Post in which he equated Trump to senator Joseph McCarthy, notorious for his witch-hunting of Americans whom he suspected to have communist leanings. Flake was, however, facing reelection troubles because the Republican base in Arizona is staunchly pro-Trump and Flake's public criticism of the president has not gone down well with grassroot Republicans.
The Republican Party is going through one of the worst crises in its history. Former senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said the GOP was imploding. As President Trump is firming his grip over the party, the fissures keep widening. How the tussle between Trump and the liberal Republicans plays out will determine the future of the Grand Old Party.
