On Trump's border threat, Republicans cover their eyes, cross their fingers, and hope it goes away

Since last week, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to close the southern border with Mexico, shutting down the flow of trade and wreaking total havoc on the U.S. economy, among other things. It's not so much a policy as it is a vendetta against immigrants that Trump hopes will whip up his base no matter what the cost.

“Security is more important to me than trade,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House. Translation: Bigotry is more important to me than the economy. 

Over on Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans, fresh off dodging a health care bullet, are content to just ignore Trump and hope he goes away. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa basically said that Trump is so full of crap, he'll believe it when he sees it: “Until he closes the border I don’t believe it.”

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin did what comes most naturally to him, played dumb: “I’m not quite sure what he means by closing the border.”

And the GOP's supposed master of the Senate, so-called “Leader” Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has a dream: "I would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing."

Hope? That's the best McConnell can do? Good Lord, who elected these jokers? This is their effing president and they can't bother themselves to figure out what the heck Trump is doing and talk him down from that ledge.

What a pathetic bunch of fools. Senate Republicans helped create the orange menace occupying the Oval Office and now they think, indeed hope, that if they close their eyes, he’ll just go away. Yeah, object permanence doesn’t work like that—something most toddlers know by the age of two.