GOP whingers won't stop him

GOP senators left a closed-door meeting with White House officials deeply frustrated with the president's plans.

Republicans are warning that President Donald Trump could face a shocking rebellion against him on the Senate floor if the president slaps Mexico with wide-ranging tariffs.

[...]

White House deputy counsel Pat Philbin and Assistant Attorney General Steve Engel faced brutal push-back from the GOP, according to multiple senators, with some threatening that Trump could actually face a veto-proof majority to overturn the tariffs.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters the party spent “almost our entire lunch” going back and forth with the administration and warned afterward “there is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that's for sure.”

  Politico

But Mitch wants to keep his position, and he wants his wife to keep hers, so he'll fall in line with the administration.

Attendees said the Trump administration officials laid out two options: The president could use the existing national emergency declaration on the border wall to impose the new tariffs or he could declare a second emergency to unlock new tariff authority. But the officials did not definitively say what Trump will do and how he will do it, frustrating Republicans given that Trump has said he would make the decision in less than a week.

Do they never tire of being led around by the nose?

The administration is essentially in uncharted territory with its threats to use unilateral tariff authority, and Republicans left the lunch still confused about how the tariffs would be applied and the underlying legal reasoning behind them.

The legal reasoning is: Trump is above the law, and until somebody stops him and proves otherwise, he's going to continue to do whatever he wants.

In comments to reporters in London, Trump said the tariffs are “likely” to go in place next Monday and said his party would be unwise to defy him, citing “tremendous Republican support.”

“I don't think they will do that,” Trump said. “If they do, it's foolish.

[...]

[E]ven lawmakers who vehemently oppose Trump’s tariffs believe there is little to no chance that enough GOP lawmakers would vote to override a presidential veto.

That's because they're not trying to solve HIV and climate change.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.