The garbage fire known as Donald Trump spent the weekend attacking Democratic Sen. Jon Tester for bringing up all that, you know, stuff that Trump Veterans Affairs nominee Ronny Jackson was alleged to have done. Why he thinks Jon Tester, specifically, is the cause of Jackson's downfall is not entirely clear (presumably, somebody on his television set told him so), but Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson isn't having it.
Isakson defended Tester's decision to publicly release the allegations against Jackson, saying that "every senator has the right to exercise their options" and "that's the way it should be."
He isn't just not having it, he even deflected on the accusations leveled against Jackson by noting that it was Trump's White House that was tasked with defending Jackson and they ... didn't.
Asked if he thought they were true, Isakson pointed to a letter he and Tester sent to the White House last week seeking information about the charges and noted that the White House never responded to it.
"We never got that response back, and that's why we didn't have the hearing," Isakson said.
Trump's team could have defended Jackson back when it mattered; they didn't. Instead, Jackson withdrew and Donald only lit into Jackson's critics in earnest after the fact, trying to milk his base for a little outrage-juice after the humiliation of yet another scandal-ridden administration appointment.
The Republican Senate will put up with a lot, but they're not that dumb. They're not going to stick up for a nominee Trump himself turned his back on—not when he already has them scrambling to defend a dozen other administration scandals on any given day.