DC insider warns Trump has put Republicans in a 'very bad jam'

With Congress returning to session this week, Republicans are juggling several crises of President Donald Trump’s making as the party struggles over contradictory priorities. Faced with many problems that have few solutions, Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman says the GOP is in a “very bad jam.”

As Punchbowl News reports, “These are critical weeks for Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress, with just over five months left until Election Day. Trump has been bogged down in peace negotiations with Iran. The conflict remains at a stalemate somewhere between war and peace. Trump blames ‘Dumocrats, and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans’ for not understanding that ‘it will all work out well in the end.’” Now the president faces a war powers vote in which the numbers are increasingly against him.

But meanwhile, Trump and congressional Republicans are embroiled in a slew of other legislative quagmires, many of which reach an impasse this week.

On Wednesday night, they hope to begin a vote-a-rama that will result in the passage of the immigration reconciliation bill Thursday morning. But this effort has been complicated by Trump’s highly controversial anti-weaponization “slush fund” as well as his demand for funding for his White House ballroom. Security funding for the wildly unpopular ballroom was already attached to the reconciliation bill, diminishing its support among lawmakers who recognize the potential for electoral blowback.

An even greater obstacle, however, is the anti-weaponization fund. On one hand, some Senate Republicans have expressed an unwillingness to pass the reconciliation bill until the White House submits a plan to place guardrails around the fund, which the administration hasn’t done and shows little interest in. At the same time, Democrats are lining up for a “massive amendment blitz” that will tie the fund to the bill, forcing Republicans to vote publicly either for or against the fund, which has been condemned as “the biggest heist in history.”

“Senate Democrats will launch a coordinated effort to kill the slush fund before one cent goes out the door,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on Monday. “And no matter what Republicans do, we will force them to vote on it.”

In the end, says Punchbowl, “The anti-weaponization fund and its impact on the reconciliation bill have been a political gift to Democrats.”

Beyond that, this week Republicans hope to reauthorize FISA Section 702, which has divided the party between those who say it’s an essential security tool and those who argue it can be used as a “backdoor” for spying on Americans. After much wrangling, “The negotiated bill is expected to include a key sweetener to attract votes from privacy hawks who have long called for reforms to Section 702: a provision that narrows the definition of an electronic communications service provider. An ECSP is the type of company that would be required to provide records to the government.”

And all of this is on top of several consequential votes involving the conflicts in Iran, Lebanon and Ukraine.

While Republicans have been hesitant to draw Trump’s ire by opposing even broadly unpopular endeavors like the ballroom, the slush fund has drawn such universal outrage that it could derail the entire GOP agenda. According to Senator Gary Peters (R-MI), it is "a bridge too far for some of my Republican Senate colleagues. I hope they realize that what was done is simply unacceptable and that they'll stand firm."

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