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Republicans say President Donald Trump needs to turn things around fast or the GOP could pay dearly in 2018.

With the party preparing to defend its congressional majorities in next years midterms, senior Republicans are expressing early concern about Trumps lack of legislative accomplishments, his record-low approval ratings, and the overall dysfunction thats gripped his administration.

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The stumbles have drawn the attention of everyone from GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who funneled tens of millions of dollars into Trumps election and is relied upon to bankroll the partys House and Senate campaigns, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Adelson hasnt contributed to pro-Trump outside groups since the inauguration, a move thats drawn notice within the party, and McConnell is warning associates that Trumps unpopularity could weigh down the GOP in the election.

Potential GOP candidates whom party leaders want to recruit are afraid of walking into a buzz saw, uncertain about what kind of political environment theyll be facing by the time the midterms come around and what Trumps record will look like.

As tumultuous as Trumps first 100 days have been, theres still plenty of time for him to correct course. The president is projecting confidence that the GOP can resuscitate its stalled repeal of Obamacare, pass tax reform, and work with Democrats on a major public works package. Success on those fronts would no doubt calm the GOPs current jitters.

But interviews with more than a dozen top Republican operatives, donors and officials reveal a growing trepidation about how the initial days of the new political season are unfolding. And they underscore a deep anxiety about how the party will position itself in 2018 as it grapples with the leadership of an unpredictable president still acclimating to Washington.

Its not the way youd want to start a new cycle, said Randy Evans, a Republican National Committee member from Georgia. At some point, theyve got to find some kind of rhythm, and there is no rhythm yet.

Theyve got to put some drives together, he added.

Appearing Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus pushed back on the suggestion Trump has accomplished little. Among other things, Priebus pointed to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and reports that border crossings have plummeted since the start of the new year.

He is fulfilling his promises and doing it at breakneck speed, Priebus said.

Behind the scenes, the administration is keeping a watchful eye on the 2018 election. Priebus remains in touch with his political allies from his time as party chairman. Theres talk Priebus may attend an RNC meeting in San Diego next month and a Mitt Romney-hosted donor summit in Park City, Utah, slated for June. The midterms are likely to be front and center at both events.

Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon are carefully tracking the special election for a Republican-leaning Georgia House seat, a contest the administration sees as a key early test of the presidents political standing. White House officials were heartened that Democrat Jon Ossoff whom Trump attacked on Twitter and robocalls fell short of an outright victory in the first round of voting, triggering a June runoff against Republican Karen Handel.

Yet as Republican strategists examine that special election, and one for a conservative Kansas seat a week earlier, theyre seeing evidence of a worrisome enthusiasm gap. In the run-up to the Georgia election, low-propensity Democratic voters people who in years past did not consistently turn out to the polls cast ballots at a rate nearly 7 percentage points higher than low-propensity Republicans, according to private polling by one Republican group.

In Kansas, the chasm was wider. Infrequent Democratic voters cast ballots at a rate of 9 percentage points higher than low-propensity Republicans did. The GOP nonetheless held the seat.

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Former Rep. David Jolly, a Florida Republican who won a 2014 special election that was a precursor to a broader GOP sweep in that years midterms, said the Georgia race was rife with warnings for his party.

It's a verdict on Trump's first 100 days, Jolly said. Ossoff simply has to speak to the president's failure, while Republicans have to wrestle with whether and how to defend Trump's historically low approval ratings and how closely to align with a president who at any moment could undermine Handel's entire messaging strategy with an indefensible tweet or an outright lie.

Jolly, who lost reelection in 2016 and is considering running again, said he and other would-be GOP midterm contenders are struggling to take measure of what theyd be getting themselves into. The election is bound to be a referendum on Trumps first two years. Two Republicans, Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy and Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks, recently announced they will be forgoing Senate runs.

"If you're a prospective candidate, boy, it's tough," Jolly said.

Republicans are far more concerned about the House than the Senate. The GOP has a four-seat edge in the Senate and a map tilted heavily in its favor. House Republicans, by contrast, have a 24-seat margin but must defend dozens of swing districts. Its a scenario not entirely unlike the first midterm election of Barack Obamas presidential tenure, when Democrats lost control of the House.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of GOP leadership, said the lack of legislative progress so far has imperiled his partys hold on the House. But Cole doesnt point the finger at Trump: Instead, he said, fellow Republicans unwilling to compromise on key agenda items like health care are to blame.

The majority is not safe, he said. We need to be more constructive legislatively, and there are going to be political implications if we don't."

I'm confident President Trump and the Congress will deliver meaningful results for the American people, said Henry Barbour, an influential RNC member from Mississippi and the nephew of former Gov. Haley Barbour. We don't have another option, particularly as it relates to the House in 2018.

Not every Republican is confident about the Senate, either. McConnell has privately expressed concern about Trumps approval ratings and lack of legislative wins, according to two people familiar with this thinking. A student of political history, the Senate leader has warned that the 2018 map shouldnt give Republicans solace, reminding people that the party in power during a presidents first term often suffers electorally.

We do have to do something with our full control of the government, said Scott Jennings, who served in George W. Bushs White House and oversaw a pro-McConnell super PAC during his 2014 reelection. Doing nothing is not an option. Theres time the midterm elections arent until November 2018 but at some point we have to finish the things we ran on.

Republican fundraising, bolstered by the partys full control of the federal government, has been robust. The RNC reported raising $41.5 million during the first quarter of the year, a record.

Yet Trumps rocky start is causing restlessness in some corners of the donor world. Adelson, the Las Vegas casino mogul, has privately complained about Trumps failure to fulfill his campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, three people close to the billionaire said. Adelson is also rankled that some people he recommended for administration posts havent yet been tapped.

More fundamentally, Adelson is dismayed by what he sees as a state of chaos in the new administration, these people said. In what some Republicans are interpreting as a sign of his frustration, Adelson has yet to give money to any of the pro-Trump outside groups set up to boost the presidents agenda.

An Adelson spokesman, Andy Abboud, said the billionaire is overall not angry or unhappy with the president and is pleased with his decisiveness on certain issues. Adelson, he said, is waiting patiently for action on the embassy.

Others are less forgiving. Texas businessman Doug Deason and his billionaire father, Darwin, have become so annoyed with the lack of progress that they have told Republican members of Congress they will not donate to them until the presidents agenda is approved. The younger Deason, a member of the Koch brothers political network, said he blamed House and Senate Republicans for the impasse, not Trump.

"I think generally people are happy, but we're in a rare position where we have the presidency and both houses of Congress, and we want to get things done," he said.

In recent weeks, party leaders have taken steps to assure nervous donors that the political environment remains stable for Republicans and that the presidents agenda is on track. During a recent donor summit in Palm Beach, Florida, hosted by House Speaker Paul Ryan, organizers stressed that health care and tax reform could still get done.

Indeed, some Republicans say its premature to start fretting about an election 18 months away, regardless of Trumps early blunders.

This is part of the growing pains of the new administration. Its like fumbling a football in the first three minutes of the game, said Ken Abramowitz, a New York businessman and major GOP donor. Its not great. But if youre going to fumble the football, its good to do it in the first three minutes.

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Republicans sound alarm on Trump's troubles ahead of 2018 - Politico

Richard DeNapoli, the state Republican Party committeeman from Broward, says the county party is rife with personal disagreements, vendettas and score settling.

The county party organization holds its regular monthly meeting Monday night.

DeNapoli emailed county Republicans with his concerns over the weekend, following Fridays resignation of Dolly Rump, secretary of the county party.

In her resignation, Rump cited major dysfunction, division and disorder between officers. She was elected secretary in December after serving as Broward chairwoman for Donald Trumps presidential campaign.

DeNapoli, a former county Republican chairman who was also an early Trump supporter, was elected as the state Republican committeeman by party voters in the August primary. That makes him a member of the state Republican Executive Committee, which governs the state party, and a leader in the local party.

The local party, run by committeemen and committeewomen throughout the county, is formally known as the Broward Republican Executive Committee.

DeNapoli, in his email, said Rump correctly diagnosed what was going on.

I understand Dolly's reasons and can echo her sentiments. It is true that rather than focusing on critical tasks, certain members of BREC are instead focused on personal disagreements and vendettas, he wrote. You may be shocked by what Im about to write, but its all true and you need to be aware of the situation.

Instead of working together, certain members are bent on expelling other members or making their lives miserable so that they resign, DeNapoli said.

Bob Sutton, chairman of the party, could not be immediately reached on Monday. After Rump resigned on Friday, he said he look[ed] forward to the Broward Republican Executive Committee board getting back to work, explaining that within the party theres always disagreements like there are in any large family.

DeNapoli said the situation is far worse than Rump described. Exhibit A, he said, was a call about him to the police on March 8 when he was speaking the Lauderdale Beach Republican Club.

I was falsely accused of assault. I say falsely accused because the police determined immediately that there was no assault, DeNapoli wrote, adding that he was accused of falsely imprisoning someone.

After he was questioned, deputies determined, of course, that I had committed no crimes and did nothing wrong. The matter was closed and there was no further investigation. They knew that this was just a political disagreement, DeNapoli wrote.

He continued:

I've heard through the grapevine that more fake criminal accusations may be coming my way. From whom I don't know. But here's an example of what might happen an ordinary handshake could be portrayed as a trumped-up battery charge.

Clearly, this is a "witch hunt" orchestrated to intimidate, harass and defame me, and you as BREC members need to be aware of this. This culture of intimidation and using the police for political purposes needs to stop, and I call upon Chairman Sutton to do something to stop this ridiculousness. ...

The bottom line is that no one should treat fellow Republicans in such a manner. No one should falsely accuse a fellow Republican, former chairman, and current state committeeman of committing crimes for their own political purposes. You do not try to ruin someones life simply because they disagree with you or you don't like them. You do not waste the taxpayers' dollars by involving the police to solve your political problems. You do not tie up the police from handling other life-threatening matters in the community by making frivolous and false calls to the police. I am an attorney and former prosecutor who has been falsely accused of assault, the crime of false imprisonment, and being under an imaginary FBI investigation. This is beyond ridiculous for someone volunteering for the Republican cause. But these are just a couple of examples of what has been going on over the last few months.

DeNapoli said he was concerned about the prospect of the county party creating a local Grievance Committee on Monday night, even though the state already has a grievance process. He said a local committee could be used to perform witch hunts against BREC members.

aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550

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Another Broward Republican leader says party is plagued with dysfunction, personal feuds - Sun Sentinel

Republicans have put President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee on the bench, and they're now in a position to fill dozens more federal judgeships and reshape some of the nation's highest courts.

Democrats have few ways to stop them.

The Republican opportunity comes with the GOP in control of Congress and the White House, about 120 vacancies in federal district and appeals courts to be filled and after years of partisan fights over judicial nominations.

Frustrated by Republican obstruction in 2013, then-majority Democrats changed Senate rules so judicial nominations for those trial and appeals courts are filibuster-proof, meaning it takes only 51 votes, a simple majority in the 100-member Senate, for confirmation.

Today, Senate Republicans hold 52 seats.

The Democratic rules change did not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But Senate Republicans are now in the majority, and they changed the rules in similar fashion this month to confirm federal Judge Neil Gorsuch to the high court over Democratic opposition. As a result, the GOP can almost guarantee confirmation of future Supreme Court justices, as well, if there are more openings with Trump in office and Republicans are in the majority.

"The Trump administration does have an opportunity to really put its mark on the future of the federal judiciary," says Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society and an adviser to Trump on the Gorsuch nomination.

Reflecting a conservative judicial philosophy, Leo says the unusual number of vacancies that Trump is inheriting could reorient the courts of appeals, in particular, "in a way that better reflects the traditional judicial role, which is interpreting the law according to its text and placing a premium on the Constitution's limits on government power."

That philosophy was a priority for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Gorsuch replaced, and Trump has said he wants the federal judiciary to reflect those values.

There are currently 20 vacancies in the federal appeals courts, which are one step below the Supreme Court, and roughly 100 more in district courts, where cases are originally tried. Former President Barack Obama had around half that number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. Of the current vacancies, 49 are considered judicial emergencies, a designation based on how many court filings are in the district and how long the seat has been open.

As the White House has focused on the Gorsuch nomination, Trump has so far only nominated one lower-court judge, Amul R. Thapar, a friend of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, for the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Republican senators say they hope to see more nominations soon from the White House.

"We've heard from them and we're talking to them," says Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the No. 2 Republican leader.

The number of vacancies is a monumental opportunity for conservatives looking to exert more influence on a judiciary that they see as too liberal and activist. But it also could work to Republicans' disadvantage. Democrats can't stop the process, but they can delay it, and they still can call for procedural votes that will delay other Senate business when Republicans are trying to confirm each individual judge.

If they do that, says Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, "we'll have more vacancies than we have now."

Democrats haven't signaled a strategy for lower court judges, but partisan tension over the judiciary is at a peak after McConnell blocked Obama's nominee for Scalia's seat, federal Judge Merrick Garland, then changed the Senate rules to avert a Democratic filibuster of Gorsuch this month. They're also frustrated that Senate Republicans confirmed very few of Obama's picks once the GOP regained control of the Senate in 2015.

Also unclear is whether the traditional practice will persist in which both senators from a state, regardless of party, consult with the White House on a nominee and then have to approve of the nominee for the Senate Judiciary Committee to move forward. Grassley said this month he is committed to honoring the practice, but said "there are always some exceptions."

Of Democratic senators working with the White House, Grassley says "it ought to be pretty easy" in states that have at least one Republican senator. But there are multiple vacancies in states with two Democrats, including eight district court openings in New York and six in California.

In Texas, which has two Republican senators, there are two appeals court vacancies and 11 district court vacancies. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz are continuing their practice of creating and consulting with a bipartisan panel of leading state attorneys to help identify the most qualified candidates for those jobs.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., a committee member, says he thinks the future of the bipartisan process is "the real fight" going forward. He says he hopes it doesn't change.

"I think there's a lot of desire to keep that power within the Senate," he said.

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Republicans in position to reshape federal bench - ABC News

Reuters

The teen arrested for JCC bomb threats covers his face at a hearing.

A Republican senator was a target of the Israeli-American teen charged with making threatening calls to Jewish community centers in the United States, court documents reveal.

Haaretz reported that the indictment, which will be handed down in an Israeli court today, includes details about how the teen called the senator to get him to retract his comments condemning the threatening calls to the JCCs and planned to plant drugs on the lawmaker if he refused to go along.

The teen allegedly said that he would fine the senator in Bitcoin if he didnt retract his comments. He threatened to incriminate the senator online. The teen then sent drugs to the politicians house and threatened to publish photos proving that he had drugs.

The Republican senator was unnamed in the Haaretz report.

The indictment said the teen made 2,000 calls, some of them graphic, to Jewish institutions and individuals. That is far more than the 200 previously revealed.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at zeveloff@forward.com or on Twitter @naomizeveloff

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Republican Senator Was Apparent Target Of JCC Hoaxer Calls - Forward

For all Donald Trumps efforts to revive coal, market forces and some of his own supporters are vying to write their own version of Americas energy future.

Divisions persist among the presidents supporters -- and even within his own cabinet -- about whether to continue subsidies for wind and solar power, enact a carbon tax, remain party to the Paris climate accord and plenty of other issues that will shape the U.S. energy landscape.

Seventy five percent of Trump supporters like renewables and want to advance renewables,Debbie Dooley, a Tea Party organizer and solar energy activist, said at a Bloomberg New Energy Finance conference in New York on Monday. The conversation has changed. You have to have the right message. Talk about energy freedom and choice. The light bulb will go off.

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Trump may be resolutely committed to fossil fuels, but theeconomic reality is renewables are now among the cheapest sources of electricity. Wind and solar were the biggest sources of power added to U.S. grids three years running, becoming key sources of jobs in rural America. Thats created clean-energy constituencies in North Carolina, Texas and other parts of the country that supported Trump in November.

Still, there are enough members of Trumps cabinet who deny the basic science of global warming that there is little, if any, chance the administration will enthusiastically support clean energy. Instead, the debate is likely to hinge on whether the president will try to actively reverse market forces allowing wind and solar to flourish.

That tug-of-war will play out in the weeks to come at the White House, in corporate board rooms and at economic summits in Italy and Germany. On Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will shed light on the debate at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance gathering, which also will feature Myron Ebell, an avowed climate-change denier who headed Trumps Environmental Protection Agency transition team.

Ebell said global warming and the advantages of clean power are largely a myth perpetuated over the last half century by financiers and scientists he dubbed the climate industrial complex.

President Eisenhower in his farewell address not only talked about the military industrial complex, but he talked about the technological scientific complex as a problem as well, Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institutes Center for Energy and Environment, said at the conference.

In many ways little has changed in Americas energy markets since Trump took office. States including California, New York and Massachusetts continue to move forward with aggressive policies to cut carbon emissions. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.s Google and other companies continue to power facilities with wind and solar energy.

How to Hit the Brakes on Climate Change

(Source: Bloomberg)

Even so, federal policy matters.

Despite the presidents executive orders, much of his energy blueprint remains a work in progress. That includes his position on tax credits for wind and solar, how energy fits into a federal infrastructure plan and how, if at all, the administration plans to keep uneconomical coal plants open.

So investors will listen closely as Perry -- who oversaw record expansions of wind power as Texas governor -- steps to the microphone at this weeks conference.

There are a lot of blanks to be filled in, Ethan Zindler,an analyst with New Energy Finance in Washington, said in an interview.

Perhaps no issue engenders more debate within the Trump administration than the Paris accord. The president famously vowed to cancel the landmark agreement during the campaign.Afterward, he said hed keep an open mind about it.

Two key events next month are likely to force him to make a decision. Leaders from the Group of Seven nations meet for an economic summit in Italy on May 26 and have indicated they will push Trump to sign off on a joint statement supporting efforts to fight climate change. And envoys hashing out details of the Paris accord will gather in Germany for two weeks of discussions concluding May 18.

Meanwhile, Trumps advisers have staked out their positions. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and chief strategist Stephen Bannon are among those pushing to scrap the Paris deal, brokered in 2015 by almost 200 nations. Opposite them stand Trumps daughter, Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others.

Pressure is coming from outside the White House on both sides of the debate. Coal baron Robert E. Murray has pushed Trump to scrap the deal. Other energy companies have endorsed the accord, includingExxon Mobil Corp., RoyalDutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and liquefied natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy Inc.

Domestic energy companies are better positioned to compete globally if the United States remains a party to the Paris agreement, Cheniere Chief Commercial Officer Anatol Feygin wrotein an April 17 letter to George David Banks, a White House energy adviser.

Outside the beltway, Trump backers are split over energy policy, too. The president received strong support from coal-rich regions of West Virginia, Wyoming andKentucky. Yet recent polls have indicated Trump voters also back renewables, especially in windy states like Iowa and Texas.

While wind and solar were the province of liberal environmentalists, conservatives have increasingly begun to see clean energy as way to weaken the power of monopolistic utility companies and bolsterAmericas energy independence. It doesnt hurt that wind and solar employ almost 475,000 people in the U.S., almost three times as many as coal.

These are conservative values: jobs, energy freedom, choice, personal liberty, Dooley said. There is really a green revolution going on within the Republican party.

Ebell doesnt buy it. And he doesnt see Trump backing away from his pledge to back fossil fuels.

The president has a very definite agenda on increasing oil and gas production, Ebell said. Wind and solar are always going to be secondary. They are always going to be a pain in the neck.

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Republican Cracks Emerge in Trump's Coal-Heavy Energy Plan - Bloomberg