President Trump delivered a pointed message Monday to Republicans beginning to break from their White House ally amid Democrats’ escalating impeachment investigation: Fight harder for me.
“Republicans have to get tougher and fight,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “We have some that are great fighters, but they have to get tougher and fight because the Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican Party for the election.”
Trump has been growing more and more irritated by criticism from members of his own party on a trio of foreign policy issues: Democrats’ impeachment probe focused on Ukraine, his decision to pull troops out of Syria and his announcement that the next Group of Seven conference would be held at his Doral golf resort in Florida.
On the first two, Trump has remained defiant. On the third, the president on Saturday made the rare move of reversing course in response to outcry — both public and private — from some of the same Republicans who have typically defended him.
The GOP opposition came from multiple fronts.
On Fox News, the president’s go-to news outlet, legal analysts, including former Judge Andrew Napolitano, charged the president with flagrant violations of the constitutional ban on accepting foreign gifts.
Those criticisms were echoed by a handful of centrist Republicans who voiced public concerns that the Doral decision, if not illegal, created unflattering perceptions that the president was using the office to boost his business interests.
Privately, a group of moderate Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Fred Upton (Mich.) and Pete King (N.Y.), huddled with Mick Mulvaney at Camp David over the weekend, warning Trump’s acting chief of staff of the poor optics and potential political backlash of hosting the meeting at the Trump resort.
Other GOP lawmakers texted and called White House officials to object to the move, sources said.
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