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(WASHINGTON) Republicans face a problem as they try to defend a slim majority in the Senate and win races elsewhere: Insurgent primary candidates are trying to lay claim to President Donald Trump's mantle, and knock out the establishment's choices.

The latest case is in Nevada, where endangered GOP incumbent Sen. Dean Heller drew a challenge Tuesday from businessman and repeat failed candidate Danny Tarkanian, who announced his bid in an early morning Fox News Channel appearance seemingly aimed at an audience of one: the president himself.

"We're never going to make America great again unless we have senators in office that fully support President Trump and his America-first agenda," Tarkanian said, criticizing Heller as "one of the first never-Trumpers in Nevada" and arguing he had obstructed Trump's agenda in Congress.

Heller opposed early versions of Trump-backed health care legislation in the Senate before voting for a final version that failed anyway. His campaign spokesman, Tommy Ferraro, dismissed Tarkanian as a "perennial candidate."

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the official Senate GOP campaign arm, quickly announced its support for Heller, and a super PAC backed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., committed to spending what it takes to support him and other GOP incumbents.

The dynamic mirrors longstanding clashes between the GOP's establishment and activist wings, which played out disastrously in 2010 and 2012 when hard-core conservatives won Senate primaries but went on to lose to Democrats. McConnell and his allies vowed never to let that happen again and have subsequently intervened in primaries when necessary to produce candidates who could win.

The X factor now is the appeal Trump may hold to Republican primary voters and what Trump himself will do. The president offered one clue Tuesday night, backing the establishment candidate in next week's GOP Senate special election primary in Alabama, hours after an Associated Press story noted the absence so far of a presidential endorsement in the race.

"Senator Luther Strange has done a great job representing the people of the Great State of Alabama. He has my complete and total endorsement!" the president wrote, bypassing a firebrand House conservative, Mo Brooks, and an evangelical former state chief justice, Roy Moore, in favor of the appointed senator strongly backed by McConnell. The candidates are fighting over the seat previously held by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

But whether Heller will get the presidential seal of approval in his primary is far less clear, and he is not alone.

Next door in Arizona, GOP incumbent Sen. Jeff Flake, another Trump skeptic during last year's campaign, faces at least one challenge from the right in conservative Kelli Ward, who repeatedly denounces Flake while praising Trump.

In each case, to their annoyance, establishment-aligned Republicans face the prospect of spending millions to protect an incumbent from a challenger who might have a tough time getting out of the general election. Republicans hold a 52-48 Senate majority and are playing offense against Democratic incumbents in 10 states Trump won.

"It's a critical time to make sure that Republican members know, when they're casting tough votes, that we'll have their backs," said Steven Law, a former McConnell chief of staff who heads the Senate Leadership Fund, in describing the decision to come in with millions to back Strange in Alabama.

Until Trump weighed in with his endorsement late Tuesday, the Alabama race had underscored questions about the role the president would play in Senate primaries.

A former GOP Senate campaign official with knowledge of the situation said the NRSC has sought help from the Trump White House on Senate races but those requests went unanswered under the leadership of recently ousted Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, leading to widespread frustration. The former campaign official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal party matters.

While Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have said they want to increase the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the White House's approach to contentious primaries isn't clear yet. And Trump has already worked against McConnell's goals, ignoring his pleas not to appoint former Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, a likely Senate candidate, as Interior secretary, while boosting endangered Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia by hosting them at Trump Tower.

As for Heller, he is already walking the Trump tightrope.

Heller's initial denunciation of a Senate plan to repeal and replace Obamacare drew the ire of a political nonprofit promoting Trump's agenda. America First Policies tied Heller to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a social media push and threatened to spend more than $1 million trashing him on television and radio on his home turf. McConnell called the group's attacks "beyond stupid."

In addition to the health care episode, Heller in 2015 said he was donating Trump's previous campaign contributions to charity a move he announced after Trump came under fire for characterizing some illegal immigrants from Mexico as rapists. For a president with a famously long memory for slights, Heller may have little hope of getting back into his good graces.

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The Republican Party Has a Big Problem: Insurgent Candidates - TIME

Building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least-effective way to do border security.

Tim MurphyAug. 9, 2017 4:06 PM

A stretch of the USMexico border in Rep. Will Hurd's district.David/Flickr

Texas Republicans are laying low during the August recess. Just eight of the 25 Republicans in Texas congressional delegation have held a public town hall in 2017. ButRep. Will Hurd is an exception; the second-term congressman, who represents more of the Mexican border than any other member of Congress,is holding a series of 20 town halls during August (most held at local Dairy Queens), and at many those stops, he has taken aim at one of President Donald Trumps signature agenda itemsThe Wall.

Hurds district, one of three Republican-held seats in Texas carried by Hillary Clinton last fall, hugs the Rio Grande for 800 miles, much of it sparsely populated. If Trump did build a physical wall spanning the entire length of the US-Mexico border, about 40 percent of it would sit in Hurds district; consequently, Hurd has been a critic of Trumps proposal dating back to last year. Trumps wall has been a frequent topic during his town halls this week, and Hurd hasnt been shy about attacking the presidents idea. In a visit on Monday to Alpine, a gateway to Big Bend National Park, Hurdtore into Trumps one-size-fits-all approach to border security.

Building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least-effective way to do border security, he said.

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A Texas Republican Is Spending This Week at Dairy Queens Slamming Trump's Border Wall - Mother Jones

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of U.S. senators from both parties on Wednesday turned up the heat on Wells Fargo Inc. over its latest scandal, in which hundreds of thousands of car-loan borrowers were charged each month without their knowledge for collision insurance, which many of them did not need.

The Republican chairs of the committee and the subcommittee that would head any congressional investigations into insurance sales, Senators John Thune and Jerry Moran, along with those panels' senior Democrats, Senators Bill Nelson and Richard Blumenthal, wrote to Wells CEO Timothy Sloan with questions about the scandal as basic as how many customers were affected.

They also requested copies of the bank's internal report that first identified the problem.

The group sent similar questions to Barry Karfunkel, CEO of National General Holdings Corporation, which provided the insurance.

Last week Moran said he was seeking additional information from Wells about reports the bank charged 800,000 borrowers for insurance without their knowledge or consent, but did not give specifics. Many borrowers already had cheaper insurance with other companies.

The letter asks Sloan when the bank, which paid $190 million in fines and penalties last year over creating phantom bank accounts, first learned about the insurance sales practices and also what steps it is taking to prevent a recurrence and to refund the erroneous charges to customers.

The letters do not mention possible hearings or subpoenas, but the senators have the authority launch an investigation using both if they are not satisfied with responses to their letters. Wells and National have until Aug. 23 to answer the questions.

The Wells letter shows senators are concerned with reports that thousands of borrowers fell into delinquency because they could not afford the premiums on top of their monthly payments and the possibility bank management pushed employees to sign customers up for insurance with incentives or special benefits.

Incentives are at the heart of last year's scandal, where employees said they created accounts in customers' names or pushed account holders to buy additional products they did not need in order to meet high sales targets.

The senators are also seeking information about possible commissions paid or revenues shared between Wells and National.

Wells spokeswoman Jennifer Dunn said the bank is committed to addressing the lawmakers' concerns.

"Customer harm is not acceptable at Wells Fargo," she said. "We are committed to fixing these mistakes and earning back trust.

Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by David Gregorio

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Republican, Democratic senators seek answers in Wells auto scandal - Reuters

When President Trump decided to throw his weight behind a plan to slash legal immigration last week, the way many people heard about it was through a pair of dramatic exchanges between reporters and Stephen Miller, a White House senior adviser who is among the hardest of hardliners on immigration in the administration. That made the initiative seem the latest example of how Trump has brought forward a new series of policies that look to pull the U.S. back from the world and keep the world out of the U.S., from his Muslim travel ban to his emphasis on illegal immigration. Even Richard Spencer loves it.

But the plan that Trump endorsed is actually one offered by Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, both of whom, while supporters of Trump, are longtime Republicans who entered office before him. A peculiar thing has happened to Trump, the Republican president with the least fealty to the Republican Partys traditional values, shortest ties to the party, and greatest opposition within it. As I wrote last week, Trump has gotten more done than his critics and opponents might wish, or might wish to admit. But almost everything he has achieved has been directly in line with traditional Republican priorities, while most of the things that are peculiar to Trump have failed or stalled out. Forget the deep state: Its the GOP thats blocking the presidents agenda.

Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears

Take the legal-immigration bill. What makes it a potent proposal is that it has substantial overlap between both the Trump wing of the party and the GOP ancien rgime. Cotton, the ambitious young Arkansan, has aligned himself with Trump to an unusual degree, given his pedigree as a socially conservative, fiscally conservative national-security hawk. Perdue ran as a classic business Republican when he ran for Senate in Georgia in 2014. They are not alone in wishing to limit legal immigration. During the 2016 GOP primary, Scott Walker and Rick Santorum both came out in favor of restrictions, before Trump even entered the race. If the Cotton-Perdue proposal succeeds, it will be because it draws support both from Trumps supporters and from many establishment Republicans.

Realistically, it faces long odds. Lots of other Republicans oppose limiting legal immigration, from Paul Ryan to Orrin Hatch to Lindsey Graham. But plenty of other policies that sit in the Venn diagram overlap of Trumpism and traditional Republicanism either stand a better chance or have already succeeded.

The most obvious example is also what is arguably Trumps greatest achievement: his successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The Senate has confirmed four other federal judges, with 30 more nominated. These appointments are important because they place conservative, and often young, jurists into lifetime jobs where they can reshape the law for decades to come. Few of these judges qualify as particularly Trumpist; Gorsuch was a rising star in conservative jurisprudence well before the presidents arrival. Trump has long recognized how powerful the nominating power is as a tool to keep GOP officials from abandoning him. In August 2016, he warned Republicans, Even if you cant stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, youre going to vote for me. You know why? Justices of the Supreme Court.

Trump has also seen some success on the southern border, where crossings have decreased since he took office. Interestingly, that has happened without any actual construction on Trumps famous border wall. But while Trumps rhetoric about illegal immigrants was far more inflammatory than what any other Republican presidential contender was willing to say, Republican voters and many officials (as well as many Democrats) have long supported better border security. In April 2016, nearly two-third of GOP voters wanted a wall along the entire border. However, Republican officeholders tend to be more skeptical of the necessity of building a 50-foot wall along the border, or of drastically expanding the Border Patrolso its no surprise than neither of those proposals has moved very far.

The balance of Trumps major accomplishments, as I laid them last week, fall under the umbrella of rolling back Obama-era regulations, particularly environmental and business regulations, as well tougher crime policies. What these things share is that they are long-standing priorities of big business and of pro-business Republicans. The GOP has been hostile to regulation in general, and to environmental regulation in particular, for years. And since these are changes that are being made by lifelong Republicans who control executive branch departments and can proceed without Congress, and dont have to rely on Trumps personal involvement, theyre the things that are getting done. Theyre also the sorts of measures (and maybe even the specific measures) that any Republican administration would have pursued.

Meanwhile, the priorities that made Trump distinctivethe ones that he talked about most on the stump, and the ones that seem to have brought new voters into the Republican coalitionare withering. The border wall is unbuilt and largely unfunded. The Border Patrol expansion is tenuous. The promise to protect entitlements has not actually been broken, but Trump has repeatedly signaled his support for Obamacare repeal plans that would take a bite out of Medicaid. NAFTA renegotiation remains in the hypothetical future. Republicans have torpedoed Trumps hopes for a rapprochement with Russia, forcing additional sanctions against Russia down his throat with veto-proof majorities in the Congress they control. The massive infrastructure plan that Trump promised seems dead well before arrival, killed by non-Trumpist Republicans who had little interest in a huge spending plan straight from the Democratic playbookno matter if Trumps voters liked the idea.

As the slow-rolling, episodic debacle of Obamacare repeal demonstrates, overlap between the Trump and traditional wings of the Republican Party is not always enough to push a policy over the top. Both sides agreed on the priority, a long-running GOP goal that was also a Trump stump staple. But in some respects, that, too, was a victim of the gap. In reality, there were two different GOP factions, one that simply wanted to tear Obamacare down, and one that wanted to tinker around the edges but preserve many of the popular provisions of the law. And though Trump took out his anger for the bills failures on GOP senators like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John McCain who voted against it, that trios stated priorities were actually much closer to Trumpswho claimed hed bring premiums down, improve plans, and also expand coveragethan they were to those of hardline conservatives like Mike Lee.

Why has Trump failed to push his own pet causes through, even as conservative Republican policies prosper? Wasnt this the Trump who had bent the GOP to his will and overcome the fearsome party establishment? One culprit is Trumps lack of discipline and short attention span, and his manifest lack of interest in the details and mechanics of policymaking. But some of his failures are rooted in the very same party takeover. Because he captured the GOP by blitzkrieg, having little experience in politics, he arrived in Washington not only without his own experience to draw on but also without the benefit of the exterior structuresthink-tanks, lobbying concerns, outside-spending groupsupon which most presidents can rely. Though most Oval Office occupants have more experience than Trump, they also dont usually need to do all the work of pushing policies through Congress.

Building that support structure requires time, capturing existing institutions, or both. The closest Trump had to that was the Heritage Foundation, a venerable conservative think tank that had taken a turn away from providing intellectual heft for the GOP to becoming, under the leadership of former Senator Jim DeMint, a gadfly that pushed Tea Party concepts on the party and punished any renegades. Heritage embraced Trump early on.

But the awkward fit was clear. In response to Trumps call for a $1 trillion infrastructure package, Heritage produced a plan that downplayed direct federal projects, relying heavily instead on tax credits and public-private partnerships to have private-sector companies do the work, rather than the government. What little detail Trump has offered on his infrastructure plan since the election seems close to the Heritage blueprint, but that means its a long way from what he seemed to be promising on the trail, and in any case its going nowhere. Meanwhile, Heritages board pushed DeMint out and the think tank seems to be reinventing itself.

So its not just Trumps infrastructure plan that has failed to materialize; its also the metaphorical infrastructure Trump requires to advance his agenda. The president promised during the campaign that I alone can fix it, and despite his struggles so far, he shows no signs of wavering from the insistence on going it alone.

It isnt hard to see a line between these struggles and a New York Times report over the weekend about the shadow 2020 contest arising between Republicans who are quietly preparing presidential runs if Trump decides, or is forced, not to run for reelection in three yearsor perhaps even if he does. One of those potential candidates is Vice President Pence, whom the Times noted has taken a variety of preparatory steps, even while maintaining his allegiance to Trump. (Indeed, Pence fiercely denied the report, despite the steps he has taken.) A few months ago, it looked like Trump had successfully conducted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Two-hundred days into his presidency, things look a little different. Having stymied his distinctive policy innovations and successfully implemented their own, why wouldnt GOP mandarins finish the job off and shove Trump aside in favor of a Republican who can do all the same thingsand without the chaos and embarrassment that Trump lugs along with him?

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Trump Is Losing His Battle With the Republican Party - The Atlantic

Ad will collapse in seconds CLOSE / the national interest August 8, 2017 08/08/2017 1:15 pm By Jonathan Chait Share The GOP brain trust. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

It is slowly, very slowly, dawning on the majority party that its plan to pass a comprehensive reform of the tax code with only Republican votes is doomed to fail. The problem, which the GOP may or may not currently realize, is that a bill can be tax reform, or it can be passed exclusively with Republican votes. But it cant be both.

Tax reform means broadening the tax base by taxing income that is currently untaxed, through deductions and reducing the rates. Broadening the base is politically hard. Every current tax deduction has beneficiaries and defenders.

Tax reform can work politically, the classic example being the 1986 Tax Reform Act. But that law was created with bipartisan support. Bipartisanship is a crucial element. It meant that every member of Congress could potentially support the bill, which meant no member had walk-away power.

Mitch McConnell wants to pass his plan through the Senate with 50 Republican votes, because Democrats oppose any plan that creates a net tax cut for the rich, and cutting taxes for the rich is McConnells overriding policy goal. His strategy reduces the universe of possible votes to the 52 Republican senators. You can see the problem this creates: Just like with health care, three defections kill any bill.

Almost every Republican senator is going to have at least one current preference in the tax code they want to keep. Since McConnell needs the votes of almost all of them, he wont be able to ignore any of their requests. Eliminating deductions with that political strategy is going to be virtually impossible.

There are signs the realization is slowly sinking in. When Republicans realize they cant pass a partisan tax-reform bill, they will need to either pass a bill thats tax reform and not partisan, or partisan but not tax reform. Politico reports the White House is reaching out to a handful of Senate Democrats, out of the calculation that squeezing 50 votes out of a universe of 52 will be too difficult.

In all likelihood, they will discover Senate Democrats dont want to vote for a tax-reform bill that reduces taxes on the rich and raises them on the non-rich. That will lead them to the other alternative: the partisan bill that isnt reform. Bloomberg News reports that Republicans are considering a bill that mixes permanent and temporary changes to the tax code. That would enable Republicans to pass tax cuts which add to the deficit, and thus cant be permanent under the Senates rules without broadening the base to pay for them.

Republicans are eventually going to realize their path to passing a bill is a second Bush tax cuts. The main question is when they figure out that this is all theyre capable of doing.

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While many people think Congress is enriching itself, its actually too poor in policy knowledge and resources to do much more than take orders.

Tensions are ramping up on the Korean peninsula.

The presidents attorney says Trump has never thought of firing the special counsel and has sent Mueller messages of appreciation.

A report suggests the White House wants to tap Rudy Giulianis colleague at a white-shoe firm.

In a race marred by negative ads, Senator Luther Strange has a positive spot thats got more shout-outs to conservative icons than you can count.

This is why Trump hasnt condemned the attack.

Oh, gosh.

House conservatives are (essentially) asking Paul Ryan to either drive America into default, or surrender his Speakers gavel.

With conservatives now threatening to take must-pass legislation hostage, they could get together with Trump and permanently end Democratic leverage.

Including admiring tweets and pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful.

In a policy reversal, the Justice Department now supports quick purges of infrequent voters, which especially affect minorities (and Democrats).

A bill can be tax reform, or it can pass exclusively with Republican votes. But it cant be both.

Women also flocked over and asked him for pictures.

Despite inheriting a strong economy, Trump has lost significant ground with GOP voters, 200 days into his presidency.

The U.S. is helping Saudi Arabia tear apart its poorest neighbor.

He voted for Trumpcare and got Danny Tarkanian.

The hysterical response of Team Pence to reports his political team has contingency plans for 2020 illustrates the deep neuroses of the White House.

Strange new allies wage a strange new war against the national security adviser.

The city says the Justice Departments new qualifications for federal grant money are unauthorized and unconstitutional.

The extensive report, which concludes that human activity is driving climate change, is awaiting final approval by the administration.

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The Republican Dream of Partisan Tax Reform Is Impossible - New York Magazine