Turning on Trump Is Still a Risky Call

(Bloomberg View) -- Some Republicans hit back against President Donald Trump's factually challenged attacks over the weekend on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the FBI in general, the Justice and State departments, and the Robert Mueller investigation (see my Bloomberg View colleague Eli Lake's comments here; see also the Jurecic and Wittes item linked below). Most Republicans were quiet; a few echoed Trump's themes. 

The two pressing questions are: If in fact Trump's rant was entirely inappropriate, and plausibly grounds for an article of impeachment for abuse of power, then what should we say about the Republican response?

It's a mistake to dismiss real Republican resistance to what Trump does. Both John McCain and Jeff Flake, the Republican senators from Arizona, spoke out forcefully, as did South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, who called for a hearing and warned Trump against firing Mueller. 

That still leaves some 48 Republican senators who hadn't spoken out as of Sunday. It's fair to criticize them, and even fair to criticize McCain, Flake and Graham for failing to follow up their good words with sufficiently tough action to rein Trump in. It's always hard to break with one's party; the fact that so few have is less significant than the fact that some have, and news coverage should reflect that. 

I also think Nate Silver is exactly correct about extrapolating from the McCabe case -- in which it's quite possible he was fired with good cause -- and the president's bluster about it to speculating about how Republican politicians would react if Trump tried to shut down the Russia investigation:

Many leading Republicans who had been solidly in Richard Nixon's camp before October 1973 roundly condemned him when he fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, forcing him to rapidly retreat and hire a tough new prosecutor. It's also worth remembering that almost all conservative House Republicans were still planning to vote against impeachment in July 1974, only to desert Nixon when further evidence was uncovered. 

Like it or not, the safe play for congressional Republicans right now is probably to keep their heads down and hope that Mueller will make their decisions easy, one way or another. They know that if they collectively turn on Trump now, he'll become less popular, which will only hurt themselves and their party this November. They also know that at some point, the weight of any malfeasance could become so strong that they'll look like fools and dupes even to Republican voters. For now it hasn't, and they can't know whether it ever will. My guess is that Trump has approximately zero personal loyalty or friendship built up on Capitol Hill, so the only thing he has going for himself is the self-interest of Republican politicians. Which will work out fine for him, if there are no further revelations and no further visible misbehavior. Anyone want to bet that's going to be the case? 

1. Jeffrey Adam Sachs at the Monkey Cage on colleges and free speech.

2. Josh Ryan on how the rules may extend Democratic presidential nomination battles. 

3. Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes on the McCabe firing. 

4. Jonathan Chait on Nancy Pelosi.

5. And my Bloomberg View colleague Justin Fox on deconsolidation in the U.S. alcoholic beverage industry. Fun stuff. Just make sure that if you're citing the government action back in the 1970s to give the credit to Barber Conable, who was a (first-rate) member of the House from Rochester, New York, and not to Jimmy Carter, who just happened to be president when it happened. 

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Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist. He taught political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University and wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

To contact the author of this story: Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Brooke Sample at bsample1@bloomberg.net.

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