Hill Republicans try to temper the hopes Trump gave his supporters

There’s a question among some Republicans whether Trump — and his band of die-hard supporters who have been promised the moon — have much of an understanding of how difficult it can be to move legislation in the Senate in particular.

“There is not much I can do Republicans-only in the U.S. Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last month in an interview with Kentucky Education Television. It’s a message he’s been delivering ever since Trump’s surprise victory and is likely to repeat often in the coming months.

Still, senators like Perdue and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia see the potential for Trump to bust up the usual partisan gridlock. Ten Democratic senators including Manchin are up for re-election in states Trump won, giving him a group that will be inclined to find at least some areas where they can agree.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has cautioned repeatedly that Republicans should avoid focusing on a purely partisan agenda — saying that was a mistake of the first two years of the Obama administration.