Last night at a ‘campaign’ visit to Michigan Donald Trump said a few things in front of the crowd of supporters….
The comments that he made that seem to turn heads within his Republican party was that he thought Republicans where not in any danger of losing the House and even the Senate in November’s midterm elections….
Huh?
It turns out that Trump has been told by GOP lawmakers from top to bottom that THEY ARE worried about the results of recent Special Elections and they have also read forecasts by pundits and polling outfits that increasing same the same thing ….Trump’s unpopularity OUTSIDE the base Republican voters is a problem ….Independent and Democrat voters are NOT happy with they way Trump has been doing things and they seem increasing likely to come out in November and support Democrats running running for office….
THAT worries his parties lawmakers….
Trump seems obvious to the warnings…
Over dinner with the president and other Republican congressional leaders this month, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, phrased his advice for the president in the form of a reminder: Mr. Trump should never forget his central role in the 2018 campaign, Mr. McConnell said, explaining that Republicans’ prospects are linked to what he says and does and underscoring that their one-seat advantage in the Senate was in jeopardy.
If Mr. McConnell’s warning was not clear enough, Marc Short, the White House’s legislative liaison, used the dinner to offer an even starker assessment. The G.O.P.’s House majority is all but doomed, he said.
But Mr. Trump was not moved. “That’s not going to happen,” he said at different points during the evening, shrugging off the grim prognoses, according to multiple officials briefed on the conversation.
The disconnect between the president — a political novice whose confidence in his instincts was grandly rewarded in 2016 — and more traditional party leaders demonstrates the depth of the Republicans’ challenges in what is likely to be a punishing campaign year.
Mr. Trump is as impulsive as ever, fixated on personal loyalty, cultivating a winner’s image and privately prodding Republican candidates to demonstrate their affection for him — while complaining bitterly when he campaigns for those who lose. His preoccupation with the ongoing Russia investigation adds to the unpredictability, spurring Mr. Trump to fume aloud in ways that divide the G.O.P. and raising the prospect of legal confrontations amid the campaign. And despite projecting confidence, he polls nearly all those who enter the Oval Office about how they view the climate of the midterms….