Hot as Helsinki: Senate Republicans Try to Escape the Flames of Trump’s Mess

Given the stirred pot of President Trump’s comments during his Finnish press conference with Vladimir Putin (covered here, here, and here), Republicans are running for the hills in an attempt to distance themselves from the mess.

The November elections, after all, are less than four months away.

As part of a tough-on-Russia united front, top Republicans in the Senate look to be eyeing a measure sponsored by Marco Rubio and Democrat Chris Van Hollen which would penalize Russia financially for any electoral meddling going forward.

The bill may be brought straight to the floor, bypassing any committee, in order to hurry the frick up and make a statement clearer than those recently being fumbled out of Donald Trump’s mouth like loose, lubricated footballs.

This, as indicated by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

On Wednesday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to confirm.

A host of other anti-Russia bills — from members of both parties — are in the works.

Meanwhile, a Rasmussen poll shows Trump’s approval at its lowest since March.

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who seemed to do a fantastic job predicting the outcome of the Russian summit (revealed here) — if you believe the President’s original batch of statements (as opposed to the second, which contradicted the first, or the third, which contradicted the second, etc.) — believes Moscow is just getting started:

“What they did in 2016 was just a warmup for what they’re going to try to do in ’18. They’ve gotten increasingly more sophisticated over the years.”

Well; that doesn’t sound good.

Neither does Trump’s wad of confusing statements about the former Soviet Union as of late.

That, according to pretty much every congressional Republican.

A few more senatorial examples—

Lindsey Graham:

“I’m a bit surprised by the President’s statement.”

Marco Rubio:

“We’re going to have an election here very soon, and we need to act quickly to put in place penalties to discourage another attack.”

Cory Gardner:

“[I’m co-sponsoring a bill] that directs the Department of State to make a determination within 90 days of whether Russia meets criteria to be added to our state sponsor of terror list.”

November is approaching. And though the economy is good and unemployment is at a record low, if President Trump doesn’t find a contraption impeding the path between his foot and his mouth, the man who in 2016 revived the Republican party could be the very one who lulls it into sleep.

More than a few GOP congresspeople are intent upon preventing that from happening.

Do you there is reason for concern? Please let me know in the Comments section below.

For those of you who missed the relevant RedState links in the article, please find them here, here, here, and here.

For something completely different, please consider my pieces on the mindset of the Parkland murderer, the Embassy move to Jerusalem, and Morgan Freeman’s response to allegations of sexual misbehavior.

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Hot as Helsinki: Senate Republicans Try to Escape the Flames of Trump’s Mess appeared first on RedState.