As October got underway, Donald Trump threw an online tantrum by way of his social media platform, lashing out at Sen. Tom Cotton because the Arkansas Republican hedged on a daylight saving time proposal supported by the White House. The president, however, didn’t just throw around some juvenile names.

After making the case that Cotton was focused on his “ego” and failing to put “Arkansas first,” Trump publicly released the senator’s cellphone number and encouraged Arkansans to use it.

Nearly two weeks later, as the president expressed fears about Texas’ U.S. Senate race, he threw another online tantrum, this time targeting Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, whom Trump labeled a “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE” political hack who would deserve the blame if state Attorney General Ken Paxton loses.

On Friday, after Trump’s Justice Department filed an outlandish lawsuit targeting Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (who is not up for re-election this year) denounced the radical gambit, declaring in a statement, “Alaskans don’t need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year’s ballot. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.”

Naturally, the president who demanded the lawsuit wasn’t pleased. In yet another lengthy online rant published Saturday night, Trump labeled Murkowski “the Republicans’ Worst Senator, by far,” before falsely saying that the senator “only got elected” because of the state’s system of ranked choice balloting, which he falsely described as “corrupt” and a “total Democrat [sic] scam.”

He added that Murkowski “probably wants” Democrats “to steal the Election,” before adding, “Lisa Murkowski is a DISGRACE to Alaska and our Country. You just don’t get any worse!”

Trump concluded that if incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, “everything we’ve done for Alaska will come to an immediate hault.” (In context, I suspect he meant “halt.”)

For good measure, shortly before midnight, the president kept going, adding in a follow-up tirade, “They’ve been trying to get rid of Lisa Murkowski forever in Alaska, then she came up with the Ranked Choice Voting SCAM.” (Again, it’s not a scam; Murkowski isn’t the one who came up with it; and the system was not responsible for rescuing her career.)

That Trump holds the GOP senator in contempt is not exactly new, but the recent series of harangues directed at senators from his own party is a timely reminder that this guy, 11 years into his political career and nearly six years into his presidency, still has no idea how to deal with Congress.

Evidently, as the president sees it, if he can just harass his ostensible allies enough through online antics, then maybe they’ll succumb to his intimidation efforts and follow his demands.

Except, as he probably ought to know by now, his harassment efforts tend not to work. Cotton didn’t change his mind about daylight saving time; Cornyn hasn’t become a Paxton cheerleader; and Murkowski hasn’t backed off her criticisms of an indefensible lawsuit.

What we’re left with is a president who keeps picking pointless fights with intraparty allies, whose support he might yet need in the near future, in the run-up to critically important U.S. elections — which is every bit as foolish as it sounds.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post ‘A disgrace’: Trump finds yet another Republican senator to condemn ahead of the midterms appeared first on MS NOW.

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