President Trump on Saturday amplified online comments critical of Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Florida Republican who earlier this month released an ad directly rebuking his immigration crackdown.
Mr. Trump reposted on social media screenshots of more than a dozen comments from other accounts that criticized Ms. Salazar, who is up for re-election in November. One of the comments urged Mr. Trump to rescind his endorsement of her, and another said she ought to be replaced with “a NEW Republican.”
The comments were reactions to a post on X sharing a Washington Post report about Latino voters in Ms. Salazar’s district who took issue with Ms. Salazar’s ad and continue to support Mr. Trump.
Ms. Salazar’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The president’s re-posts amounted to another point of friction between Mr. Trump and Republicans on the ballot this fall. A growing number have recently broken with the president, whose low poll numbers threaten to hurt their chances in the midterms.
Nine days ago, Ms. Salazar released an ad saying that Mr. Trump’s immigration efforts “have gone too far” and that his Hispanic voters “feel betrayed.” (Recent polling suggests Mr. Trump is losing ground with those voters.)
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office the next day, Mr. Trump said he disagreed with Ms. Salazar but understood her position.
“She got a little bit soft on the border. I understand that,” he said.
A couple of days later, Ms. Salazar said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that she had a “fantastic conversation” with Mr. Trump, in which she again urged him to re-evaluate his approach to immigration.
“He was a gentleman, very courteous, very receptive,” she said.
The president’s posts on Saturday drew some swift criticism. Mr. Trump was “demanding absolute loyalty from a member who has strongly supported him and is fighting for her life,” Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former congressman from South Florida, wrote in a text message. He added that “It seems he prefers that Democrats flip that district rather than keeping someone who is with him a good 90 percent of the time. Doesn’t make sense.”
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently shifted Ms. Salazar’s seat from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
More subtle efforts by other Republicans to create some distance from Mr. Trump have also drawn notice. Representative Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor of Florida, recently retooled his campaign website to make Mr. Trump’s endorsement less prominent on the page.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump sought to dispel any notion of divisions, writing on social media that he had already scheduled rallies for Mr. Donalds in Florida.
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