This continues a trend demonstrating that Trump is undermining Republicans all over the country. GOP candidates barely won House special elections earlier this year in seats once thought safe in Montana, Georgia, Kansas, and South Carolina. Here in Alabama, where I live, Trump was shown to be politically impotent when he went “all in” for appointed U.S. Senator Luther Strange, who was shellacked in the Republican Senate primary by former chief justice Roy Moore. Last year, in one of the few races where he endorsed in a House primary, on behalf of incumbent Renee Ellmers, Ellmers suffered a huge and embarrassing defeat.

Trump also badly mishandled the entire Obamacare replacement effort. When is the last time that a first-year president failed at his first major legislative initiative without being seen as the main loser of the battle? Never in my lifetime.