Senate Republicans have a strategy for dealing with an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump going after one of their own. Avoidance. If a reporter managed to pin them down, the most any would utter were a few words of praise for Trump's latest target, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) with a refusal to acknowledge (at least publicly) that they've got a serious problem in the White House.
"Senator Corker is a valuable member of the Senate Republican caucus and he's also on the Budget Committee and a particularly important player as we move to the floor on the budget next week," said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), walking a line that other Republican senators followed throughout the day. McConnell's remarks were first reported by the Associated Press and confirmed by his office.
The reaction highlighted the broader strategy Capitol Hill Republicans have adopted when it comes to the president's tendency to wage rhetorical war against their own or incite other controversies: Don't engage in public no matter how anxious they may be in private.
That approach grows riskier with each passing crisis — exposing congressional Republicans to culpability for the actions, some with potentially grave global consequences, of an unpredictable and contentious president.
Hey, no one said it was a good strategy. But there's some calculation behind their cowardice, though again it's not in any way noble. They want their tax cuts.
Some Senate GOP aides expressed a sense of worry and resignation — worry that the Corker-Trump fight, if broadened, could threaten their effort to rewrite the nation's tax laws, and a feeling that there was little they could do to counter the president's unpredictability in a constructive way.
"The primary concern at this point is for the agenda," said one Senate aide, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. The aide added: "There is some resignation that, you know, the president is just going to throw these bombs."
So far the bombs are just rhetorical. But it might occur to some of these guys that Trump's got far more deadly bombs in his arsenal and that maybe they're responsible for making sure he doesn't blow them up, too.