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Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have earned the ire of most Americans, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, with nearly seven in 10 (68%) judging the Republican Congress a failure so far after last month's repeal and replace plan died in the Senate.

Approval of the current Republican leaders in Congress has dropped from 39% in January to just 24% now. Seven in 10 say they disapprove of Republican leaders in the legislature. More broadly, only about a quarter of all Americans (24%) judge the Republican Congress a success so far. President Trump gets the approval of 38% of Americans in the CNN poll.

Republicans themselves are evenly split 44% to 44% on whether the GOP-led Congress has been a success or failure so far. Even three quarters of people who approve of Trump say they disapprove of Congress (76%) and a plurality (48%) says the GOP-led legislature has been a failure.

Still, only one in three Americans (34%) say they approve of Democratic leaders in Congress, while six in 10 (59%) disapprove.

Views among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents of their party's congressional leadership has plummeted over the last eight months, falling from 75% approval in January to just 39% now. Democrats' and Democratic-leaning independents' views of their party's leadership remains basically unchanged at 50% today.

And three quarters of Americans say they disapprove of how Congress is handling its job; only 20% of Americans approve, matching this year's low in January. That figure holds across party lines, with only about one in five on each side saying they approve of Congress's work so far. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more positive about their leaders in Congress (50% approve) than are Republicans and GOP-leaning independents about their leaders (39% approve).

Congress left for its August recess without passing any sweeping, comprehensive legislation, failing in its attempt to pass something on health care and leaving tax reform on the docket. A vote on the debt ceiling looms this fall.

A plurality of Americans (38%) say disagreement among Republicans in Congress is the main reason for the lack of major legislation so far this term, while a quarter each blame a lack of leadership from President Trump (26%) and opposition from Democrats (25%).

Among Republicans only, a slim majority (51%) cast the blame on Democrats for the lack of new legislation vs. a third (32%) who say disagreement from Republicans is to blame. Only 8% point the blame at President Trump.

Moving forward, a majority of all Americans (56%) says Republicans should work with Democrats to make changes to current health care policy. The rest are divided: One in five say the GOP should both stop trying to repeal Obamacare completely (21%) and the same share say Republicans should keep trying to repeal it anyway (21%). Republicans themselves are split on this question: 45% say GOP leaders should continue trying to repeal Obamacare on their own, 42% that they should work with Democrats to make changes.

Only 14% of Americans now say it's very likely that Trump and the Republicans will be able to pass repeal and replace legislation, down from 18% in July before the failure of the most recent effort to repeal and replace the law. Just 28% of Republicans and 27% of Trump approvers say it's very likely. A majority (56%) say it's not likely that Republicans will be successful in passing their own health care bill, the first time that figure has topped 50% in CNN polling.

Still, just a third (33%) say Obamacare should be repealed completely, regardless of whether it is replaced. Among those who oppose repeal, more say the law needs minor changes than a major overhaul, while just 6% of all Americans say it should be left as is.

When asked about the 2010 health care law, a slim majority of Americans (51%) say they oppose the legislation vs. 42% of Americans who favor the bill. That's a return to the level of support seen in May 2015. But when the question was posed as to whether they support "Obamacare" -- the colloquial term for the Affordable Care Act -- support for the law is higher. Half favor the law vs. 46% who oppose it.

Nearly six in 10 say they favor a national health insurance program, even if it means higher taxes (58%). That's down slightly from ten years ago, before the passage of the ACA, when 64% supported the idea. Still, eight in 10 Democrats (81%) say they support the idea.

A quarter of Americans, a plurality, (24%) say health care is the most important issue facing the country today. One in seven (15%) focus on the economy, 11% say immigration, 8% say foreign policy and 8% name Donald Trump. Less than 5% name each of several other issues, like the environment, civil rights, government spending, education and other issues.

Six in 10 women back Democrats for Congress in 2018, while men back Republicans by a slim 5-point margin. Independents favor Democrats by 9 points, 46% to 37%. Democrats have been optimistic that Trump's unpopularity might spark a wave election in 2018, but the electoral map is unfriendly so far and Republicans have held seats in tight special elections.

Democrats lead a generic Congressional ballot among all Americans by 11 points, 51% to 40%. Still, midterm electorates typically lean more Republican than all Americans. Democrats lead registered voters by a similar 51% to 42%.

CNN's Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

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CNN Poll: Nearly seven in 10 judge Congress a failure so far - CNN

President Trump alternately cajoles and berates Congress as he struggles to find legislative wins in key issues he campaigned on. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

They more or less kept it behind closed doors for a couple of weeks, but Republicans are no longer holding back their frustration that they couldn't repeal Obamacare. The blame game has started, and it's open warfare. Here's President Trump, blaming the Senate majority leader, on Twitter, in front of his 35 million followers:

Let's back up. After Republicans' attempt to undo some of Obamacare fell one vote short in July, Trump got out in front by not-so-subtly threatening Republicans with the label total quitters and hammering them at every public opportunity.

Get them to have the guts to vote to repeal and replace Obamacare, Trump told a West Virginia crowd on Thursday.

The normally reserved Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) kept his head down. But on Monday, while speaking to constituents in Kentucky, he basically said it's not fair to blame Congress. It's the president's excessive expectations that are out of whack.

Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before. And I think he had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process. So part of the reason I think people feel were underperforming is because too many artificial deadlines unrelated to the reality of the complexity of legislating may not have been fully understood.

In other words: Don't judge if you don't know what's going on, Mr. President.

By Wednesday morning, McConnell's marks had infiltrated the White House. Trump aide Dan Scavino fired back that McConnell was just making excuses for his poor leadership.

Trump allies in the media piled on. They are phony baloney, said Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Tuesday night. Ditch Mitch. Same from Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Then, a couple hours later, the president himself joined in the McConnell bashing.

As that was catching fire, another parallel blame game was forming. On Tuesday,Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.),suggested on talk radio that Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) brain cancer diagnosis may have influenced how the senator voted. McCain, along with Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) voted against the bill in a late-night series of votes. He later said he didn't appreciate how Republicans rushed through the legislation.

Again, I'm not going to speak for John McCain. You know, he has a brain tumor right now, that vote occurred at 1:30 in the morning some of that might have factored in, Johnson told Chicago's Morning Answer. The host, caught off guard, asked Johnson directly if he thought the tumor affected McCain's judgment, and Johnson backed off some: I don't know exactly what we really thought and again I don't want speak for any senator. I really thought John was going to vote yes to send that to conference at 10:30 at night. By about 1, 1:30, he voted no. So you have talk to John in terms of what was on his mind.

Damage, done, though. McCain's office fired back in a statement:

It is bizarre and deeply unfortunate that Senator Johnson would question the judgment of a colleague and friend. Senator McCain has been very open and clear about the reasons for his vote.

What's going on here?

For one, it's pretty clear Republicans blame themselves for failing to repeal Obamacare, not, as some of them say publicly, Democrats.

Two: There's a split in the party about who was least helpful in trying to corral 50 ideologically diverse Republican senators to support an unpopular piece of legislation.

From the beginning, Senate GOP aides privately said that Trump wasn't helping much. He gave them little to no direction on what kind of legislation he wanted and absolutely no comfort that he'd have their backs once they passed something. Trump celebrated House Republicans' controversial health-care bill with them in the Rose Garden, then called it mean.

But from the White House's perspective, Republicans in Congress had seven long years to come up with a plan to repeal Obamacare. When Barack Obama was in the Oval Office, Congress managed to pass a repeal bill. How could they finally have total control of Washington and not send one to Trump's desk?

Obamacare repeal, for now, is probably shelved. But a war over who is to blame for that can only drag down Republicans as they try to tackle the next major thing on their to-do list, tax reform.

Tax reform posesas many challenges for Republicansas health care, if not more.

Timing isone big one.Their initial planto get it done this fall is extremely optimistic. When Congress returns in September, it also has to lift the debt ceiling and pass a budget all things it has been unable to do in the past without Democratic help. And the closer it gets to the 2018 midterm elections, the less likely some vulnerable Republicans are to take tough votes for the sake of the party.

Even if they dodge a debt ceiling fight and shutdown, as The Washington Post's Damian Paletta and Kelsey Snell report, Republicans haven't yet figured out how they want to reform the tax code. The Trump White House has released a one-page handout, and that's about it.

Senate Republican leaders also say they're likely to follow the same procedural trickas they did tryingto pass health care toavoid a Democratic filibuster, which means they'll need at least 50 of 52 Republican votes. That alone will be a major challenge, because tax reform covers just as wide of an ideological spectrum as health care. (Should the tax cuts last a year? Adecade? Forever? Is it okay if they raise the deficit? And on and on.)

In other words, Republicans have a lot of problems facing them this fall. And fighting over who's to blame for not repealing Obamacare will only exacerbate them. But Republicans are doing it anyway, and they're doing it publicly.

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Republicans are airing their dirty laundry on Obamacare - Washington Post

President Trump and many of his top aides have expressed skepticism about climate change, while others say human activity is to blame for global warming. So what's the administration's real position? (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

For at least the past decade, Republican Party leaders' position on climate change has evolved inverse to scientific evidence.

As scientists have spent the past decade firming up their conclusion that climate change is a real threat, Republican politicians have solidified their doubt about it. In fact, the party's past three presidential nominees have all backed off their prior assertions that climate change is a threat caused by humans.

Not only that, but each successive nominee has started out less convinced of the realities of human-driven climate change than the last. In 2008, Republicans nominated someone who ran an ad featuring a smoke stack and promising smart solutions to climate change. In 2012, climate change wasn't mentioned in the presidential debates. Now, the nation has a president who refuses to clarify if he still thinks climate change is a hoax put on by the Chinese and who may not accept a new report from his own scientists that says climate change is happening now.

Here are key climate change moments in the conservative world since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out a decade ago, as told by Republican presidential nominees and the research.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) could be considered the most pro-climate-change-action Republican to ever win the nomination. When he launched his campaign for president, McCain was a leader in the Republican Party on climate change.

He ran an ad that actually tried to out-climate-change the Democrats. It featured smokestacks, congested highways and a not-so-subtle setting sun, with news clips declaring: McCain climate views clash with GOP, scrolling across.

I believe climate change is real, he said on his campaign website. I think it's devastating. I think we have to act and I agree with most experts that we may at some point reach a tipping point where we cannot save our climate.

But as the campaign went on, McCain slowly and subtly backed away from his act-or-else position. Ultimately, he picked an open climate change skeptic, Sarah Palin, as his running mate.

After he lost the election and was back in the Senate, McCain's evolution as a climate change skeptic was complete. He started calling cap-and-trade something he hadsupported since at least 2003 a cap and tax.

Key climate change moments: Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

The 2007 report declares warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

If McCain's position after the presidential race was confusing, GOP nominee Mitt Romney's position was hard to track during the presidential race. He fudged or switched his position on the degree to which humans contribute to climate change several times, and he never offered any specific policy proposals.

Let's start from before he got the nomination. He wrote in his 2010 book, No Apology, that he believes humans are playing a role in climate change, but he wasn't sure to what degree.

I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer, he told the New Hampshire Union-Leader in 2011.

Like McCain, as the campaign went on, Romney's skepticism toward climate change grew: We dont know whats causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us, he said at one point.

Finally, Romney used Barack Obama's support for climate change action as an attack against the president: President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family, he said in his nominating speech.

After the election Romney appeared to switch his positions this time, back to his original assertion that climate change is a problem.

I'm one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that, he told the Associated Press in 2015.

Key climate change moments: A prominent climate-change skeptic scholar, Richard Muller, writes in the New York Times that, after research (funded by the Koch Brothers, climate change skeptics), he has decided climate change is real, and humans are the main cause.

And a Brookings Institution study finds that public opinion about whether climate change is real is rebounding, after dropping from a high of 78 percent in 2008 to a low of 52 percent in 2010. In the spring of 2012, 65 percent of Americans believe there is solid evidence that human activity is warming the planet.

When Donald Trump won the nomination for president, he was on record denouncing climate change as a hoax (before he ran for president, but he refuses to this day to clarify or elaborate).

He fit right into the GOP primary. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) denied the planet is warming, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he doesn't think humans are causing dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.

And, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump documents extensively, Trump took just about every position possible on climate change when he got into the race. But the overriding theme was skepticism.

I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. Im not a great believer, he told The Post as he was on his way to the nomination.

The New York Times reports that Trump's advisers saw an applause line and a political opening with blue-collar coal and mine workers in the Rust Belt by questioning climate change.

This time, the Republican presidential candidate won. And this time, the politician didn't veer from his position. In fact, you could argue that since Trump has become president, he's increased his skepticism by pulling out of the Paris climate change accord that all but two countries are a part of and putting in place climate change skeptics into Cabinet positions, like Rick Perry at the Energy Department and Scott Pruitt at Environmental Protection Agency.

Key climate change moments: Reporters get hold of a government climate change report in August that says it is extremely likely that half of the rise of temperatures over the past 40 years are thanks to humans. In other words: man-made climate change is very real, and it's happening now: There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate.

Also, a 2015 Gallup poll found that only the most conservative Republicans think climate change won't affect them in their lifetime.

The Trump administration is reviewing the Climate Science Special Report, and it's not clear if it will accept the findings.

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Republicans' inverse evolution on climate change, as told by 3 presidential candidates - Washington Post

Seven modern midterm contests have combined both factors: unified control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and presidential approval below 50 percent. And they paint an even more ominous picture for today's Republican majority in Congress.

In those seven midterms, the president's party lost an average of 41 House seats and 6.4 Senate seats. In four cases, control of the House flipped; in three of them, control of the Senate flipped, too.

Next November, a gain of 30 seats would give Democrats control of the House. A gain of three seats would give them control of the Senate.

President Donald Trump's Gallup approval rating now stands at 37 percent.

Using traditional prediction formulas, notes Congressional elections scholar Gary Jacobson, "no way the Republicans hold onto the House." Even if Democrats didn't win the Senate, that would roadblock Trump's legislative agenda.

But the changing political landscape has diminished the value of some old guideposts. That provides Republicans some comfort 200 days into the Trump presidency.

First, partisan voting patterns have grown more consistent as Democrats and Republicans have grown increasingly polarized in recent decades. That diminishes ability of Democrats to attract dissident Republican voters.

Second, the combination of political gerrymandering with the residential concentration of Democrats in large metropolitan areas gives Republicans the ability to win a share of House seats far outpacing their share of the overall population. So the current Democratic lead in national "generic ballot" polls a robust 9 percentage points in the current realclearpolitics.com average exaggerates the potential for Democratic gains.

Third, today's Democratic Party has grown increasingly reliant on younger voters. They traditionally turn out for midterm elections at lower rates than their elders.

In the Senate, moreover, Republicans hold a huge advantage benefit in the profile of seats up for election next November. Of 34 senators on the ballot, only nine are Republicans; of the seven considered most vulnerable, only two are Republicans.

As a result, says fivethirtyeight.com analyst David Wasserman, "the Congressional map has a record-setting bias against Democrats."

Congressional Republicans need all the help they can get. Not only is Trump historically unpopular for a president in his first year, but the all-Republican government has failed to deliver on any of its major promises to voters.

The seven-year GOP crusade repeal and replace Obamacare collapsed before the president and Congress left town for summer vacation. When they return in September, party leaders face the urgent task of convincing balky lawmakers to protect America's credit-worthiness by raising the federal debt ceiling.

The White House and Congressional Republicans vow to deliver by year-end on their pledge to cut rates and overhaul the nation's tax system. If they fail, they may not have the chance to try again soon.

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Despite Trump's low ratings, midterm election map still favors Republicans -- for now - CNBC

Robert Mueller speaks before the US Senate Judiciary Committee in 2013. (Reuters / Larry Downing)

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Backed into a corner by Robert Mueller, the indefatigable special counsel whos looking into Russiagate, the Trump familys finances, and Trumps possible efforts to obstruct justice, the president is lashing out. In the past few weeks, especially since mid-July, Trump, along with his lawyers and key conservative allies, launched a barrage of attacks aimed at discrediting Mueller, possibly as a prelude to having him fired.

But at the same time, while Mueller maintains complete radio silence, others have spoken out strongly in his defenseincluding, as it turns out, a growing number of Republicans.

In Congress, remarkably, several Republican senators have joined with their Democratic colleagues to propose legislation restricting Trumps ability to oust Mueller. One pair is made up of Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE), and another is from Lindsey Graham (R-DC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ). Both pieces of legislation would do essentially the same thing: Were Trump to ask the Justice Department to fire Mueller, that decision would have to be reviewed by a three-judge panel. Appearing on Fox News Sunday on August 6, Tillis was asked if his proposed bill was aimed squarely at Trump. Theres no question that it is, said Tillis. I dont believe the investigation is a witch hunt. Graham, for his part, said that it could be the beginning of the end for Trumps presidency were he to fire Mueller.

If he fires Robert Mueller, theres some significant chance that eventually Mueller will be the lead witness in his impeachment hearing. Rich Lowry, National Review

Rich Lowry, the conservative editor of National Review, appearing on the same Fox News Sunday broadcast, warned the president in the strongest possible terms that purging Mueller would not be a good idea. President Trump needs to realize, if he fires Robert Mueller, theres some significant chance that eventually Mueller will be the lead witness in his impeachment hearing, said Lowry. Those, of course, would be impeachment proceedings carried out by a Republican-led House of Representatives.

In another remarkable move, Senate Republicans united to prevent Trump from firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and installing a replacement as a recess appointment that wouldnt require confirmation by the Senate. They did so by setting up a procedure under which the Senate would not formally recess during the August break.

Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added for good measure that there was no way that the Senate would consider confirming a new AG if Sessions were fired. Thats important, because Trump cannot fire Mueller himself but would have to ask the Justice Department to do it. Sessions has recused himself from Russiagate, thanks to his still unexplained meetings with Russias ambassador to the United States, so he cant do the firing, and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has pretty much said he wont do it.

Perhaps Republicans have realized that distancing themselves from Trump is their best hope of avoiding an electoral catastrophe in 2018.

It isnt certain, yet, how extensive the opposition is among the GOP in Congress and among Republicans at large to Trumps jihad against Mueller, Sessions, the FBI, and the Justice Department. But its clear that its there and that its growing. Why, exactly? Perhaps its simply that many Republicans, especially in the Senate, resent Trumps incessant attacks on Sessions, an ultraconservative former colleague. Perhaps its because the Republicans resisting Trump actually believe in that American thing called the rule of law. And perhapsbest possibility of allits because Republicans have realized that distancing themselves from Trump is their best hope of avoiding an electoral catastrophe in 2018, and that their chances of being reelected might improve if theyre not seen as having colluded with an out-of-control president hellbent on obstructing justice.

Meanwhile, perhaps having thoughts along similar lines, Trump is engaged in a full-scale effort to discredit and smear Mueller. As far back as late June, in fact, Trump began his campaign to paint him as hopelessly partisan and unfair. I can say that the people who have been hired [by Mueller] are all Hillary Clinton supporters, Trump said on Fox and Friends. He added, He [Mueller] is very good friends with [fired FBI Director] Comey, which is bothersome. As for dealing with Mueller, presumably by having him fired, Trump said, Were going to have to see.

On July 20, The New York Times headlined its story on the Trump-led counteroffensive: Trump Aides, Seeking Leverage, Investigate Muellers Investigators. The paper reported that Trumps teamwhich is led by Ty Cobb, a Washington superlawyeris scouring the professional and political backgrounds of investigators hired by Robert S. Mueller III, looking for conflicts of interest. Part of what theyre doing, said the Times, is scrutinizing donations to Democratic candidates and looking at investigators past clients. The goal, quite clearly, is to tar Mueller as running a team in thrall to the Democrats.

The very next day, Kellyanne Conway, the presidents spinmistress, began slamming Mueller for his teams alleged Democratic leanings. On July 21, appearing on Fox and Friends, Conway said that members of Muellers team clearly wanted the other person [i.e., Hillary Clinton] to win, and she questioned the political motivations of Muellers lawyers. Asked on CNN about getting to the truth behind the Russia allegations, Conway scoffed: Isnt Mr. Mueller and his band of Democratic donors doing that? Conway kept up the barrage, saying on the August 6 edition of ABCs This Week that the White House will cooperate with Bob Mueller and his investigation, even thoughmany of them are Democratic donors.

Needless to say, while some of Muellers team members did indeed make relatively small contributions to Democratic candidates, that doesnt amount to evidence of bias, nor does it discredit the work theyre doing. According to ThinkProgress, three of Muellers attorneys made donations to Democrats totaling just $56,000 over the past three decades, and nearly all of that was from just one of the investigating attorneys, while according to Business Insider, as many as seven of the 16 attorneys may have given money here and there to Democratsthough, as even Fox News reports, some of those same lawyers also donated cash to Republicans, too, while a handful of others gave about $200 to one or two Democrats.

Mueller himself, described in nearly every profile as the straightest of straight arrows, himself leans Republican, and he was appointed to the Justice Department in 1989 by George H.W. Bush and to his 10-year term as FBI director in 2001 by George W. Bush. And, as three lawyers writing for the Los Angeles Times pointed out, according to the Justice Departments own stringent rules, campaign donations do not create a conflict of interest.

A string of lawyers with strong credentials in the field of ethics each told Politico last month that Trumps critique of Mueller on grounds of political bias were utterly groundless. The arguments from the Trump camp are either cynical or further evidence for the fact that the president apparently has no ability to conceive of the difference between the professional and the personal, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor and professor of law at Duke University. To anyone who actually knows conflicts lawand Painter and I have between us spent over half a century on the subjectthe Trump teams allegations are garbage, said Norm Eisen, President Obamas ethics czar, referring to Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.

Nonetheless, picking up on Kellyanne Conways lead, likely at the instigation of Trumps own legal team, the pro-Trump media echo chamber unleashed a barrage of attacks painting Muellers team as partisan. Now, this guy Mueller has staffed up with many anti-Trump, anti-Republicans. Hes got a bunch of Obama lawyers, a bunch of Hillary lawyers whove also been fundraisers, bundlers, big time donors, proclaimed Rush Limbaugh. And Breitbart News, formerly headed by Steve Bannon, Trumps senior adviser, highlighted Paul Ryan in expos fashion for his defense of Mueller against trumped-up charges of bias. Ryan, who said that Mueller is anything but [a] biased partisan, precipitated howls of outrage from Breitbarts loyal followers. Typical of the comments: Ryan is doing the work of his Globalist masters just like Mueller.

An even more scurrilous attack on Mueller came from Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Alan Dershowitz. Both raised the fact that the grand jury reportedly empaneled last month in Washington, DC, would be inherently biased against the president because Washington is a Democratic Party stronghold. Dershowitz went so far as to warn, in an interview with WABC, that the ethnic and racial composition of the nations capital, which is heavily African-American, would tilt likely jurors against Trump. And Gingrich chimed in, saying guess how biased the grand jury will be.

The president unleashed a Twitter barrage on July 22 trying to paint Mueller, the Justice Department, and his own attorney general as somehow doing the Democrats dirty work. Among the highlights of Trumps tweetstorm: He wondered angrily why the Special Council [sic] wasnt investigating Hillary Clintons e-mails (July 22), said Attorney General Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (July 25), accused the acting FBI chief of getting $700,000 from Clinton for his wifes political campaign (July 25), and asked why didnt Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for alleged Clinton ties (July 26).

Trump has shown no sign that hes ready to recognize the reality that he cant block Mueller without doing fatal damage to his own political future. During his bizarre, rambling political rally in West Virginia last week, Trump turned repeatedly to the Russiagate affair, calling it the totally made-up Russia story. This despite having complete access to all of the top-secret information the US intelligence community has about Russias interference in the 2016 election.

Have you seen any Russians in West Virginia or Ohio or Pennsylvania? Trump asked the raucous audience. Are there any Russians here tonight? Any Russians?

That sort of bombast may win him cheers in Huntington, West Virginia. But it wont gain him support among his own party in Capitol Hill. And, needless to add, it wont stop Robert Muellers intrepid sleuths from expanding their inquest.

Originally posted here:
Why Trump's Attacks on Mueller Are Getting Some Surprising PushbackFrom Republicans - The Nation.