CONGRESS/GOP/MEXICO/TARIFFS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump’s threats to impose blunt new tariffs on Mexico has unleashed a circular firing squad among Republicans in Congress. A bloc of Senate Republicans is threatening to put up a veto-proof majority to block the tariffs if Trump moves forward by using his national emergency powers. But most House Republicans and another faction of GOP senators say their colleagues are making a mistake by undercutting the president on one of his signature issues…The public split not only risks embarrassing the president and his party. It undercuts the shared goal Republicans have in avoiding the tariffs that Trump seems eager to deploy. At issue is a conflict over strategy. Some GOP lawmakers hope to pressure Trump with the prospect of a rebellion that far exceeds the dozen defections on his national emergency declaration this winter, while others argue for a quieter persuasion campaign. The dual approaches are scrambling ideologies and voting blocs on Capitol Hill. Take Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), both up for reelection in red-hued states but who have far different conclusions about the president’s tactics.”
–Burgess Everett, Melanie Zanona and Marianne Levine, “GOP fractures over Trump’s tariffs,” Politico, June 5, 2019 12:40 am