After more than four years of nearly unbroken fealty to the President, a heavy majority of Senate Republicans broke with Trump in a Friday vote overriding his veto of a bipartisan defense policy bill. With that loyalty test failed, Trump is also lashing out at Republicans who are refusing to get on board with a dead-end attempt to throw out the election results and erase his loss to President-elect Joe Biden when Congress counts the electoral votes next week.
Over the last 24 hours, Trump has called for a primary challenge to the second-ranking Senate Republican, South Dakota’s John Thune, praised GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley for his plan to join House Republican members in objecting to the Electoral College count — a symbolic gesture that will not stop Biden from being sworn in on January 20 — and touted a protest in Washington scheduled for the day his defeat will be ceremonially rubber-stamped by Congress.