[Beren]

GOP senator: ‘Too difficult to say’ if Trump will be 2020 nominee

BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 08/21/17 10:54 AM EDT


Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Monday said she’s unsure whether President Trump will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2020.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson, Collins, who wrote in Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) name for president in 2016, said it’s “too early to tell” whether Trump will seek a second term.

Asked if she believes Trump will be the party’s 2020 nominee, Collins responded: “It’s too difficult to say.”

Trump’s campaign has not taken a break since the president’s surprise electoral victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in November.

The campaign has been relentlessly fundraising and releasing campaign ads, while the president has taken breaks from his White House duties to hit the road for rallies in the states that he won in 2016.

It is exceedingly rare for an incumbent president to receive a primary challenge. It last happened in 1992, when conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan challenged former President George H.W. Bush.

But Trump’s historically low approval rating and the shadow of the Russia investigation have added to the sense that he could attract a primary challenger or decline to seek a second term.

Trump’s critics within the GOP, including Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are among those generating early buzz.

But Trump has a solid grip on his base of supporters, and many Republicans think a primary challenge against him would be a suicide mission unless there is movement to impeach him or he decides to walk away.

She considers running too perhaps?

[colliric]

She's just indicating exactly how early it is. There's still over a year to go until the campaign begins nominally at the very beginning of 2019.

[Beren]

She's clearly indicating that some moderate Republicans are seriously considering to challenge Trump in 2020.

Described as one of "the last survivors of a once common species of moderate Northeastern Republican", Collins is considered a bipartisan and centrist member of the Republican Party, and an influential player in the U.S. Senate. In 2015, The Lugar Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit founded by Senator Richard Lugar released a bipartisan index in cooperation with Georgetown University, ranking Senator Collins the most bipartisan senator in the 114th Congress (and the only U.S. Senator from the American Northeast ranked among the top 10 most bipartisan senators). She is a member of several moderate organizations within the Republican Party, including the Republican Main Street Partnership, Republican Majority For Choice, Republicans for Choice, The Wish List, Republicans for Environmental Protection, and the Republican Leadership Council.

Collins with President Barack Obama

[colliric]

No it's not. It's Politics as usual. Always play cards close to your chest. They won't put anyone else up, or if they do it'll be a dummy challenge, because it's Party Political Suicide guaranteed to lose government.

Anything can happen in 3 years, even I'll admit that. He's 70 years old, after 4 years he might retire, he could have health problems, or some dickhead might shoot him. It's early. Don't want to make the same mistake George Clooney and Pelosi made calling election 2016 way too early. Look like idiots now.

I will say he will win though if he decides to continue.

[MistyTiger]

It is too early to make election predictions.

Though I hope Trump decides that being president isn't all that great. He hasn't accomplished much aside from firing cabinet members and pulling out of the Paris climate change agreement. His reign is like a 3-ring circus...lots of noise and excitement but nothing of much substance.

[Beren]

Being president is all that great for Trump because it makes him even more famous and have more followers and fans, plus it's all about him all the time and it makes him richer. He won't run for reelection only if he's convinced he's going to lose, but maybe he'll try anyways.

[jimjam]

maybe he'll try anyways.

Oh, he'll run unless he drops dead. I'm sure he has noticed the same thing Huey P. Long noticed when he said, "They think I'm so smart. Maybe I'm not. Maybe it's that there are a lot of dumb people in the world."

[quetzalcoatl]

To difficult to say, indeed. The same speech impediment that afflicts the rest of the Republican Party. But the answer is, of course, yes - barring one of the following:

1) Major economic downturn. People are already maximally pissed, and they won't stand for it.
2) Mueller approaches federal judge. Grand Jury is impaneled. Trump acts out and fires Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller. (He should have done all his firing in one fell swoop, but fucking morons will be fucking morons.)
3) Trump orders strike on North Korea and military brass balks or resigns.

Note that Trump cannot voluntarily resign, and he can't afford to not be President. He is way too deep in debt, and needs the leverage of state power to negotiate personal family deals with Russia and China. He also cannot afford to be without the legal immunity of being President, however limited or temporary that might be. He's in over his head, and there's no way out.

[jimjam]

jimjam would like to see Senator Bob Corker run for the top spot in 2020. He appears to be a Republican with guts amongst a bunch of gutless wonders. For nearly nine months, Senate Republicans have watched their new president with a mix of aggravation and alarm. But it took Senator Bob Corker to take those concerns public and confront President Trump with his most serious challenge from within his own party.

In unloading on Mr. Trump, Mr. Corker, a two-term senator from Tennessee, said in public what many of his Republican colleagues say in private — that the president is dangerously erratic and unstable, that he treats his high post like a television show and that he is reckless enough to stumble the country into a nuclear war.

Mr. Corker responded to a series of Twitter attacks on him by Mr. Trump. He said that the president was running the White House like it was “a reality show” and with bellicose threats that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.” Mr. Corker added that “every single day at the White House, it’s a situation of trying to contain him.”

“Guys like Bob Corker, I think, have reached the point where it’s like, ‘Can we not pretend the emperor is not naked? Can we not pretend the emperor is not unstable in a way that we should’ve understood very, very clearly more than a year or two years ago?’” Charlie Sykes, a former conservative talk show host and author of “How The Right Lost Its Mind.”

[Beren]

It really feels like Eric Cartman won the presidency last year.

[Heisenberg]

Oh, come on now @Beren - that's hardly fair. Eric Cartman is a genius.

[jimjam]

Many of us recognized long before the election the same things that Corker said yesterday. None of this is new. The fact that it took this long for a Republican to say it publicly speaks volumes about the weakness of the Republican brand, and their unwillingness to put American interests before their own political interests. There is a dumpster fire inside the White House and Trump is desperately trying to pull the country into the dumpster with him. Corker finally realized what many of us have known for a long time.

[Beren]

I wonder whether Trump would be impeached if he triggered WWIII or Republicans would rather argue it's needed to bring back some great jobs from China.

[Heisenberg]

If Trump triggered WWIII, the Republicans would fall into line quicker than Waffen SS soldiers on Hitler's birthday. "We have to get behind the troops! Do you hate America?"

[Beren]

The problem is that the troops, I mean the military, don't want it. If they did, WWIII would be already happening I guess.

[jimjam]

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
The Failing @nytimes set Liddle' Bob Corker up by recording his conversation. Was made to sound a fool, and that's what I am dealing with!
8:50 AM - Oct 10, 2017

Today's dose of moronism from the fool on the hill. Now, try to imagine Abe Lincoln, George Washington or F.D.R. uttering such moronic nonsense. Can the office of the president be dragged any lower? Sure, stay tuned .

[Beren]

Trump is the ideal president for the beginning of the end. He's an ideal figurehead for a declining empire.

[blackjack21]

She's clearly indicating that some moderate Republicans are seriously considering to challenge Trump in 2020.

Susan Collins will go nowhere. She's to the left of Hillary Clinton.

They won't put anyone else up, or if they do it'll be a dummy challenge, because it's Party Political Suicide guaranteed to lose government.

A lot of the old guys like McConnell would be fine with that. Much of the donor class is far to the left of the general public, and the Republicans have gone along with all of their social program. Much of the Republican party just plays the role of slowly coming to the Democratic party's shift of the Overton Window. This is why the Tea Party is such a relevant force, even though the media ignores it.

Note that Trump cannot voluntarily resign, and he can't afford to not be President.

A president can voluntarily resign. Nixon did. It has already been done.

It really feels like Eric Cartman won the presidency last year.

Unfortunately, Eric Cartman isn't real. However, it would be funny.

The fact that it took this long for a Republican to say it publicly speaks volumes about the weakness of the Republican brand, and their unwillingness to put American interests before their own political interests.

The reason he is president is because they put their own interests before American interests, as do the Democrats. The American people are done with identity politics.

I wonder whether Trump would be impeached if he triggered WWIII or Republicans would rather argue it's needed to bring back some great jobs from China.

Just imagine what WWIII would do to curb global warming. He would be saving the planet.

I love what Trump is doing to the politically correct Republicans.

[jimjam]

Susan Collins will go nowhere. She's to the left of Hillary Clinton.

She's from Maine and up here we do not follow orders very well. We actually think for ourselves and, God forbid, stray from the sheep heard from time to time.

The reason he is president is because they put their own interests before American interests, as do the Democrats. The American people are done with identity politics.

I share your dislike for the sons and daughters of bitches in DC but cannot condone the childish and incompetent behavior of the mental case who now holds the office of POTUS. As I said, try to imagine Lincoln, Washington or that stinking liberal FDR spending every day throwing childish insults at anyone who deigns to disagree with them.

[blackjack21]

As I said, try to imagine Lincoln, Washington or that stinking liberal FDR spending every day throwing childish insults at anyone who deigns to disagree with them.

Lincoln and Washington didn't have a modern press or many socialists to deal with. FDR was a socialist for all intents and purposes. Heck, even the Italian fascists liked him. FDR was essentially a dictator, as was Lincoln.

Trump, by contrast, is a bombastic guy who uses bad manners coupled with good points to drive self-styled elitists apoplectic. It's a wonderful recipe, and a much needed antidote for today's political correctness. His NFL critique was spot on and a fairly wide spread victory for him.