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President Trump, confirming Friday that he is under federal investigation, continued to wage a pitched battle against the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, behavior that unsettles even his Republican allies.

Trump in a morning series of Twitter posts called into question the legitimacy of the inquiry, now in the hands of special counsel Robert Mueller, the widely respected former director of the FBI. But it was the last post in that tweet storm that come back to haunt the president.

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt," Trump said, in what amounts to an official statement. The president's allies reacted with alarm.

"Not smart at all," a Republican member of Congress who has been a consistent supporter of Trump's said in a text message exchange with the Washington Examiner.

"The president splits his coalition when he complains about Mueller," added a Republican strategist whose clients are among Trump's cheerleaders. "He would hold it together if he'd say that the press is too focused on it and we should instead be talking about the economy and security."

Both Republicans requested anonymity because they did not want to be publicly critical of the president.

Trump since before being inaugurated in January has been troubled by the congressional and federal investigations into Russian meddling, calling them an attempt by Democrats and other opponents to undermine the legitimacy of his victory.

In addition to the possibility of putting himself in legal jeopardy through his tweets, Trump also is diminishing his ability to expand his base of political support.

That is unlikely to matter in solid Republican districts and "Trump Country," regions of the country that have gravitated toward the president.

"Trump supporters are solid for him no matter what he says," Bob Gleason, the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party who is close to Trump, said.

But it could cause Republicans big headaches in 2018 in the battleground seats upscale suburban enclaves held by Republicans but won by Hillary Clinton that could determine the fate of the House majority.

"That concerns me," Gleason conceded. "We as a party need to do much better in the Philly suburbs." He added: "But the proof at end of day it's not what he said, but what does he do? What are the results?"

The effect of Trump's near daily complaints has been to fire up his uncommonly loyal base, yet drive news coverage away from a legislative agenda that has shown the potential to be quite popular, including among voters who don't support him.

This week was workforce development week, capped by Trump unveiling his new Cuba policy. Last week was infrastructure week. Most of it was overshadowed by Trump's war on the Mueller investigation and carping about probes being conducted the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The president's public spats also could impact the ability of his party to deliver results in Congress.

Upcoming votes on healthcare reform, and presumably an overhaul of the federal tax code, are going to require Republicans to take significant political risks. The American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to partially repeal Obamacare, is unpopular with the broader public

Trump highlighted his 50 percent approval in the Rassumussen poll, the first time he has cracked that level since April in this survey, which tends to show him stronger than other polls.

But overall Trump's approval in the averages is stuck at 40 percent, which could imperil his agenda by making those tough votes that much tougher for Republicans looking ahead to the midterm.

"We have blinders on," a senior Republican House aide said. "We have to stay the course; we have to continue to do our work, we have to continue to move an agenda and not get distracted by leaks in investigations."

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Trump tweets against Russia investigation make even friendly Republicans nervous - Washington Examiner

President Trump's new U.S. policy toward Cuba was met with strong opposition from within the Republican Party on Friday.

Trump announced a slew of new restrictions that curtail travel and commercial ties between the U.S. and Cuba, fulfilling one of his campaign promises to roll back Obama-era rules with the communist country.

I am canceling the last administrations completely one-sided deal with Cuba, Trump saidin Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, where he announced the change.

The move was immediately criticized by Republican members in both houses of Congress, including Rep. Justin AmashJustin AmashRepublicans slam Trumps new policy toward Cuba Kids shouldn't be charged as sex offenders Dem: Disrespect for rule of law by Trump administration 'off the charts' MORE (R-Mich.), who accused Trump of "dancing with the Saudis and selling them weapons" while talking about national security.

.@POTUS's Cuba policy is not about human rights or security. If it were, then why is he dancing with the Saudis and selling them weapons?

I hope as we go forward, @POTUS will remember he was elected to challenge the status quo - not to be part of it. #KeepCubaOpen

Emmer also released a statement hitting the Trump administration over the decision.

"Most importantly, todays announcement creates a very real security risk for the American people and our homeland by inviting foreign nations into our backyard to fill a void that todays announcement is creating," Emmer wrote Friday.

Sens. Jeff FlakeJeff FlakeRepublicans slam Trumps new policy toward Cuba Trump draws a harder line on Cuba The Hill's 12:30 Report MORE (R-Ariz.) and Patrick LeahyPatrick LeahyRepublicans slam Trumps new policy toward Cuba Trump draws a harder line on Cuba Top Senate Dem: Trump needs to give up all his 'Twitter equipment' MORE (D-Vt.), who co-sponsored theFreedom to Travel to Cuba Act with 53 other senators, bashed Trump for the abrupt reversal of the Obama administration's policy.

Any policy change that diminishes the ability of Americans to travel freely to Cuba is not in the best interests of the United States or the Cuban people. It is time Senate leadership finally allowed a vote on my bipartisan bill to fully lift these archaic restrictions which do not exist for travel by Americans to any other country in the world," Flake wrote in a statement.

Leahy accused the White House of "re-declaring war" on Cuba with the new policy.

"This is a hollow retreat from normalization that takes a swipe at Americans freedom to travel, at our national interest, and at the people of Cuba who yearn to reconnect with us all just to score a political favor with a small and dwindling faction here at home," Leahy wrote. This White House, by reaffirming the embargo, has re-declared war on the Cuban people."

Leahy and Flake's bill, if passed, would lift the restrictions on U.S. tourism in Cuba. It has 55 total co-sponsors but has not yet been brought to the floor for a vote in the Senate.

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Republicans slam Trump's new policy toward Cuba - The Hill

When winning Democratic manager Rep. Mike Doyle gave the Congressional Baseball Gametrophy to his counterpart, Rep. Joe L. Barton, to put in Rep. Steve Scalises office while he is recovering, it summed up the feeling of the evening.

Its so awesome to show everyone that we actually get along and I want that to be the message that everyone takes away tonight, Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis said after the game.

Texas Rep. Roger Williams, who injured his ankle scrambling for cover after a gunman opened fire on the Republican teams practice on Wednesday said, We needed to play this game. If we hadnt played this game, the bad people would have won. They dont want us to be able to live our lives like were used to, so we had to play the game.

I hope this is a day we can look back and say, we kind of downed the rhetoric a little bit agree to disagree.

The Democrats crushed the Republicans, 11-2, but that wasnt the focus of the post-game chatter. The missing presence of Scalise, who was hit by a bullet in the hip and underwent his third surgery in two days shortly before the game.

Game On: Video Highlights from the 2017 Congressional Baseball Game

We lost the game but we won for Steve Scalise with the showing that turned out and whether it was the fans with the record turnout or the players, Minnesota Rep. Erik Paulsen said. We just really did it for the right reasons.

When news broke that Scalise had come out of surgery and his condition had improved, it quickly reached the Republican dugout.

The best news of the night was that Steve is improving. I saw that in a tweet or something, Rep. Ryan Costello said. Everybody is still trying to deal with what happened as best they can. The fact that hes improving, the fact that no one was killed, is a huge sigh of relief. Hell be back next year, I have all the faith in the world,

[Democrats Reclaim Congressional Baseball Title, Bipartisanship Rules]

Two others who were woundedwere there, though: Williams staffer Zach Barth, and Capitol Police officer David Bailey, who threw out the games first pitch. Barth and his boss walked out on crutches together following the game.

Baseball is a healing sport and thats what we saw here tonight. It was healing, it was unity and you saw that evidence by the Democrats giving us the trophy, giving it to Scalise. Hes fighting for his life, Barth said. Hes the guy who needs the prayers right now. Were getting together and this is step towards healing.

Barth said he never expected to hear an entire stadium cheer for him.

Maybe when I was really young, hesaid. I never thought this was possible, but it was great to see and extremely encouraging.

Another touching moment was when both teams met at second base to pray for Scalise.

It was the prayer out on second base that was pretty moving. I think it hit everybody when you realized that we had this whole thing going and Steve wasnt there, Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Meehan said. He was there in spirit but you just keep waiting for him to turn the corner and be in the dugout.

The prayerful atmosphere at the beginning of the game turned into a positive and patriotic feeling for the rest of it. While staffers cheered for their bosses, they were louder cheering for Bailey and Barth.

One of the games longest-playing veterans, Republican Rep. Kevin Bradyof Texas, has never seen a crowd like Thursdays record attendance of nearly 25,000 in his 21 years on the GOP team.

It was like a dream I mean, the whole place seemed packed and the roar of the crowd and having David Bailey and honoring the Capitol Police, that made this a very good game, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady said. Next year well get them.

[Patriotic and Unified Atmosphere at Congressional Baseball Game]

The somber, yet proud and unified feeling, overcame the Republicans as they walked through the stadium at the end of the game.

Im not so happy about the loss, but Im pretty happy we played the game. I think it was a great experience for everybody to get out and away from all of the tragic trauma of the last day and a half, Meehan said.

For the Democrats, the win was bittersweet.

Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragn, playing in her first game, said Doyle had decided before the game that if the Democrats won, they would give the trophy to the Republicans to put in Scalises office. Doyle didnt ask for the teams consent until the lateinnings, when the Democrats had a comfortable lead.

Mikes very superstitious, Barragn said.

At a news conference before the game, Democratic pitcher Louisiana Rep. Cedric L. Richmond said his wife reminded him that 90 percent of his conversations with Scalise were about the annual game.

Richmond joked that Scalise wanted the Democrats to win because if the Republicans won without him, that would diminish his value.

[Congressional Baseball Game Ticket Sales Skyrocket After Shootings]

While at pastCongressional Baseball Games, members pop in for a few innings or attend parties in the suites, there was an outpouring of members at this game.

Everyone from Reps. Pete Sessions, Joseph P. Kennedy III, Robin Kelly, Debbie Dingell, Brian Fitzpatrick, Dwight Evans, Louie Gohmert to all members of leadership Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leaders Charles E. Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Scalises counterpart, Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer were there.

Members sat together, hugged one another, chatted throughout the game, andpartisanship seemed to not be present.

This is a statement. A statement was made tonight about a lot of things. About violence, about political extremism and hopefully the public views us as regular people who are trying to do the best we can in a very difficult world, Illinois Rep. John Shimkus said.

Freshman GOP Rep. Roger Marshall had ordered Scalises home state Louisiana State Universityjerseys for members of both teams but they didnt arrive in time. But LSU hats did make it before the game, and by the end, several members at the stadium were wearing them.

Obvious, in honor of Steve Scalise, Ohio Rep. Bill Johnson said about hishat. We talked about him the whole game.

[Congressional Baseball Game To Honor British Terror Victims]

Another last minute change was who threw out the first pitch.

Bailey, who along with fellow Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, who remains hospitalized, was credited withpreventing a massacre by taking the shooter down in an intense gun battle, threw it out while on crutches to Roberto Clemente Jr., son of baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente.

Griner stood next to baseball greatJoe Torre. The crowd cheered Bailey and afterwards members from both teams waited in line to hug him and pray.

Before the shooting, the British ambassador was scheduled to have the honorsto rememberthe victims of the recent terror attacks in England.

Bridget Bowman, Kyle Stewart and Griffin Connolly contributed to this report.

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Democrats Down Republicans, Both Down the Rhetoric - Roll Call

It has been a rough Friday morning for President Donald Trump. He fired off a pair of tweetstorms aiming his anger at investigators looking into his potential ties to Russia, the "fake news media"and, in general, the "phony Witch Hunt going on in America."

He has reason to be angry. Trump's support among Democrats and independents has long been pretty dismalbut now things are growing worse among his own party and thedemographic groupsthat largely thrust him into the White House.

In just one month, the percentage of Republicans who thought America was heading in the right direction dropped a full 17 percentage pointsfrom 58 percent in May to 41 percent in Juneaccording to a Gallup survey released this week. Overall, just 24 percent of Americans are pleased with the direction the country is heading, the lowest point since July of last year when the figure plunged after a series of police-involved shootings.

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There are other worrying signs for Trump. A survey released this week from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Researchpollfound the president's support among Republicanswhich is, of course, his own partyhad plunged. The poll found that one-quarter of the GOP respondents now disapproved of the job Trump was doing, up from 20 percent the month prior.

The investigation into Trump's potential ties with Russiaand the president's decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey, who was charged with looking into those potential tieshave left a fair number of Republicans feeling concerned. Twenty-five percent of GOP respondents in theAssociated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Researchpoll said Trumpattempted to impede or obstruct the investigation through that firing. It's worth noting that obstruction of justice has long been considered an impeachable offense.

Trump'sbase voters, his key demographics, appear to be growing weary of the president, as well. Sixty-six percent of white voters without college degrees cast their ballot for Trump, according to CNN's exit polls. Yet among whites without a college education the president's approval rating stands at just 50 percent, according to theAssociated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

While the White House has long been defined by tumult and some Republicans have been withdrawing from the president for a while, recent signs have been particularly worrying for Trump. Last week a Quinnipiac University pollfound 32 percent of GOP respondents thought the president was not level-headed, while 21 percent said he did not share their values. Twenty-eight percent of the GOP thought Trump was not keeping his promises about fighting corruption in D.C.Overall, theQuinnipiacsurvey found Trump's approval rating had dipped to a new low of just 34 percent.

"If this were a prize fight, some in his corner might be thinking about throwing in the towel. This is counter puncher Donald Trump's pivotal moment to get up off the mat," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll."With a third of the members of his own party questioning his level headedness, this is clearly the moment the president needs to steady the ship."

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Trump's Latest Problem: His Base And Republicans Are Fleeing The President Amid Russia Controversy - Newsweek

Step back from the daily headlines of the Trump administration.

After almost 6 months under President Trump and the 115th Congress, the United States is in a strange position: Republicans enjoy a decisive partisan advantage, controlling the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

Yet GOP officials have no mandate to govern. (And neither, of course, do Democrats.) The country is adrift as a result, even amid significant challenges that confront it at home and abroad. And it is likely to stay adrift through the 2018 midterms, when voters can next send a clear signal about their preferred course.

Until then, Trumps allies will remain frustrated by the stiff opposition their champion faces. Some cast that opposition as illegitimate, given that Trump won the 2016 election. They insist that allegations about collusion with Russia and entrenched opposition from the bureaucracy are unfairly stymieing the White House.

But even if Trump is vindicated on Russia and gains greater sway over the federal workforce, this fact will remain: Voters preferred his opponent by a margin of more than 2 million, even though the Democratic nominee was a weak, corrupt candidate.

Yes, the Electoral College confers absolute legitimacy on its winner.

But it cannot confer an accompanying mandate on a candidate who loses the popular vote by so much. In fact, asked after the election if Trump had a mandate to carry out the agenda he campaigned on, or if he should compromise on matters that his Democratic rivals strongly oppose, just 29 percent of Americans said he had a mandate. And even that 29 percent may feel differently about matters where Trump campaigned on one agenda only to pursue a distinct or contrary course in office.

Trumps initial lack of a mandate has been underscored by his consistently dismal approval ratings. A clear, growing majority says it disapproves of his performance. Nate Silver reports that even part of his base seems to be eroding: Theres been a considerable decline in the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump, from a peak of around 30 percent in February to just 21 or 22 percent of the electorate now.

The Republican Congress (and its own dismal approval rating) only complicates matters.

All of its members were duly elected, too. Most of those senators and representatives ran on platforms that clash bigly with Trump on immigration, trade, foreign policy, or some other vital matter. (The GOPs primary electorate may have rejected Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz as presidents; but voters in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas Senate races chose them, even as voters in House Speaker Paul Ryans district chose him over a Trumpian challenger.)

At times, divides among Republicans are as sharp as their disagreements with Democrats, as Americans have witnessed watching GOP attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Doing so has proved so difficult in large part because both Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress were long unwilling to level with the public about the tradeoffs that must be made to reshape the health-care system.

They promised a costless improvement on Obamacare.

Trumps inconsistent rhetoric on health care and his preferences on infrastructure spending sometimes seem to align with Democrats more strongly than with those of Republicansand little surprise, given his previous incarnations as a registered Democrat, his donations to Democrats, and the praise he once lavished on the Clintons. But Democratic legislators will have a hard time compromising with Trump even on matters where their beliefs overlap, given how fully he has alienated the partys base with the charge that Obama is a secret Kenyan, the claim that Mexico is sending us rapists, and the boast that famous men are able to grab women by their genitals without asking.

Some conservatives are similarly unwilling to support Trump because they believe his glaring defects in character and judgment outweigh any policy agreements. And internal disagreements within both political parties are likely to go unresolved so long as Trump is in office because his polarizing quality has only intensified the degree to which American politics is now composed of people driven by their antagonism to other factions more than by their attraction to any positive agenda for the country.

Trump began his tenure by suggesting that a country so divided would be failing. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity, he declared in his inaugural address. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable. The ensuing months have confirmed what was evident at the time: America will never be united under Trump, a divisive man who cannot even unite his own party behind a coherent agenda.

A new national pride will stir our souls, lift our sights, and heal our divisions, he declared. But as long as he is president, tens of millions will rightly or wrongly regard him as a stain on Americas character and regard his tenure as a national shame.

Those are the stark political realities that the Trump administration and the GOP Congress will keep facing, even if resolution comes in the Russia investigation, the still-hidden tax returns, Trump family profits from foreign dealings, the leaky White House, and the national-security officials who mistrust their commander in chief. While those realities persist, America will prove unable to solve most of the significant problems that confront it at home or abroad. It is a handicap of our own making.

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Republicans Are a Majority Without a Mandate - The Atlantic