A newspaper owned by tycoon Rupert Murdoch has warned Donald Trump that publicly humiliating one of his own senators might end up crippling his presidency.
Tempers flared over the weekend as the president tore into three GOP veterans—Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie, both of Kentucky, and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina—for daring to speak out against White House spending proposals currently making their way through the Senate in the form of Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’
Amid threats from the president to back a primary challenger in 2026, Tillis announced Sunday he would not be seeking re-election, taking to the floor that evening for a fiery speech in which he slammed the president as “misinformed” and advised solely by “amateurs.”
This, according to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, may prove to be the first nail in Trump’s coffin.
“When events are going in his direction, he [Trump] has an uncanny habit of handing his opponents the sword,” the newspaper noted, adding that while Sunday’s Senate vote represented a triumph for the GOP, “Mr Trump couldn’t leave victory alone.”
The editorial board went on to argue that a pre-emptive withdrawal from the race on Tillis’ part “opens another seat that is another pickup opportunity for Democrats next year.”
While Republicans may boast a Senate majority of 53-47 for the time being, the WSJ notes Sen. Susan Collins has always faced “a tough race in Maine,” that the “Democrats are targeting [Senator] Joni Ernst in Iowa,” and that much-reviled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s prospective run against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn could put the party’s foothold in the historically red state at risk.
“GOP legislative reforms will have no chance if Democrats take the House in 2026,” the paper wrote. “And if they also take the Senate, forget about confirming another Supreme Court nominee. The Trump Presidency will be dead in the water.”
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