ABC’s Karl: Republicans in Congress Are Really Worried Trump ‘Is Driving Them Off a Cliff’

Friday on ABC’s “The View,” ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said Republican lawmakers were “really worried and very frustrated” that President Donald Trump “is driving them off a cliff.”

Co-host Meghan McCain said, “President Trump can’t seem to get out of his own way, and I think Republicans are feeling it and getting a little nervous when he’s supposed to be talking about China, which is what we were told he was talking about in the Rose Garden, he used the time to attack Joe Biden. Why do you think he doesn’t have a cohesive message, and how frustrated are his aides by this? It’s really interesting to me because he has a lot of arrows he could be using, and they just seem to not be using them for whatever reason. It’s really baffling.”

Karl said, “I mean, he always goes from the gut. I mean, this is a big theme of my book. He had an expression and did an interview with Barbara Walters back in the ’80s when he first flirted with running for president, and he was just, like, 41 years old. Barbara was trying to get him to explain his strategy, and he was, like, no — it’s like the prizefighters. When you go into the ring, you go with the punches. There’s nothing strategic with how he goes. He believes he can go by his gut.”

He continued, “Yes, it frustrates his aides. They are certainly no longer surprised and are used to it. The people that are really frustrated as you mentioned are Republicans, Republicans in Congress who are worried that things are getting so bad that he is so undisciplined on this, that Republicans will suffer severe losses in the House, further losses in the House and will lose control of the Senate. I mean, you now have Senate races that look newly competitive not just in places like Maine and Colorado, but places like Georgia and maybe even Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina. Republicans are really worried and very frustrated that the president is driving them off a cliff.”

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