“Republicans have increasingly split with Trump on a host of issues shadowing his administration, from his tone on racism and the removal of Confederate statues, to wearing a face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic and questions over intelligence reports of a Russia-backed bounty program on U.S. troops in Afghanistan” USA Today reports.
“It’s a rare moment in the president’s three-and-a-half-year tenure, during which Trump otherwise relished inparty unity on issues such as his impeachment and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.”
“‘There’s a real disagreement between the president and his party in this election,’ said Alex Conant, a GOP strategist and former aide to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. ‘I think a lot of Republicans are really fed up with the president’s divisive strategy. People are just throwing up their hands with some of the rhetoric that’s coming out of the president. It’s really unhelpful not just to his own re-election, but also to keeping the Senate.'”