“I think most Senate Republicans will privately acknowledge what everyone else seems to know: the president’s not going to win reelection and they are going to be dealing with a President Biden,” said former Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who retired in 2018 after Trump loyalists turned on him for criticizing the president. “He’s put some of my former colleagues in an untenable position.”

Trump’s erratic moves on the stimulus in particular have flummoxed Republicans, who were already divided among themselves over how big a package they’d agree to with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats…

Many GOP lawmakers are keenly aware that Trump could pull the rug out from under them at any moment. They also are concerned he could be even more unpredictable on stimulus negotiations as the election draws nearer, according to a person familiar with conversations among lawmakers and their aides…

A GOP strategist who has been consulting with Senate campaigns said Republicans have been carefully laying the groundwork to restrain a Biden administration on federal spending and the budget deficit by talking up concerns about the price tag for another round of virus relief. The thinking, the strategist said, is that it would be very hard politically to agree on spending trillions more now and then in January suddenly embrace fiscal restraint.