And even some Republicans up for re-election in states won by Mr. Trump, like Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, sound uneasy. “I would like to see it resolved soon,” said Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, who also faces re-election in 2020. Mr. McConnell has already been burned once, having negotiated and passed through the Senate a plan to avoid the shutdown in the first place only to have Mr. Trump pull his support at the last minute. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, Mr. McConnell’s former No. 2, compared Mr. McConnell’s task to “threading a needle.” Mr. McConnell’s former chief of staff, Josh Holmes, said it was considerably more simple than that.

Source: New York Times January 04, 2019 01:39 UTC