Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) claimed Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” that Republican lawmakers are feeling bullied and therefore “unhappy with President Donald Trump’s leadership.
Host Lawrence O’Donnell said, “I know you were at the Senate Finance Committee hearing today, and you made some very good points, especially about small business. But what I wanted to show viewers tonight was exclusively what the Republicans had to say. I thought that was so important about what is becoming now, this observable fracture in the Republican Party, Donald Trump finally, finally has some Republican senators voicing opposition questions, challenges to his policy.”
Whitehouse said, “Yeah, and I think it’s not the first time. I mean, we saw a faction of the Republican Party get very unhappy about Trump when he mobbed up with Putin and took the side of the mobster Putin against the freedom fighters in Ukraine. That was not a great moment. Then, nominee after nominee after nominee, Republicans have been bullied into supporting incompetence and oddballs, and you know, that builds up. And there’s been an awful lot of political pressure applied that has not been very well organized or thoughtful to ram through the reconciliation bill, the budget bill that they’re working on now.”
He added, “And then on top of it all boom, come these really poorly thought through tariffs. And the next thing you know, you know, $6 trillion is gone from the market, which gets CEOs’ attention. And so they’re on the phone saying what the hell is going on. And I think you know the Lucy, you have some explaining to do, and the moment is really here. And it’s creating a lot of pressure within the Republican caucus and between the Republican caucus and the White House. And as you pointed out, even within the White House, with the Musk Navarro feud erupting into plain sight.”
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