From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   Updated 06/29/2017    
      
      
   Republicans condemn Trump for crude tweets about ‘Morning Joe’ host    
      
      
   'Your tweet was beneath the office,’ Lindsey Graham said about Trump’s   
   message about a bleeding face-lift.    
      
   Republican lawmakers on Thursday swiftly rebuked President Donald Trump for   
   crudely claiming that “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski was   
   “bleeding badly from a face-lift,” saying such tweets are beneath the   
   office of the president.    
      
   In a two-part tweet, Trump said he “heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks   
   badly of me (don't watch anymore).” He then went on to hit Brzezinski:   
   “how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came … to Mar-a-Lago   
   3 nights in a row around    
   New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me.  She was bleeding badly from a   
   face-lift.  I said no!”    
      
   The messages, some of the most graphic and personal since Trump became   
   president, were condemned by Republicans who are struggling to push Trump’s   
   legislative agenda forward while the White House is consumed by the Russia   
   probes and self-inflicted    
   dramas.    
      
   “Obviously, I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” House Speaker   
   Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Thursday during his weekly press conference, adding,   
   “Look, what we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone, the   
   civility of the debate, and    
   this obviously doesn’t help do that.”    
      
   Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went further, tweeting, “Mr. President, your   
   tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American   
   politics, not the greatness of America.”    
      
   Graham later told POLITICO that Trump’s insult was “highly i   
   appropriate” regardless of any impact it might have on distracting from the   
   GOP agenda. Asked if the president should apologize, Graham said, “I would,   
   if I were” Trump.    
      
   The tweets echo some of Trump’s attacks from the campaign trail, during   
   which he went after then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly after the first debate by   
   saying, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming   
   out of her wherever.”    
      
   But the messages take on a new tenor now that Trump is in the Oval Office, and   
   is trying to pull off big legislative lifts — including an Obamacare repeal   
   bill and tax reform package — that require message discipline.    
      
   White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly defended the tweets,   
   explaining the president fights back when he feels the criticism toward him is   
   unwarranted.    
      
   “Look, I don’t think that the president’s ever been someone who gets   
   attacked and doesn’t push back,” Sanders told Fox News on Thursday   
   morning. “There have been an outrageous number of personal attacks, not just   
   to him but to frankly    
   everyone around him. … This is a president who fights fire with fire and   
   certainly will not be allowed to be bullied by liberal media or liberal elites   
   in Hollywood or anywhere else.”    
      
   Sanders said she personally has been attacked on “Morning Joe” on matters   
   that have nothing to do with her beliefs, ideology or policy. “I have seen   
   far worse things [than the tweets] come out of that show,” she said.    
      
   The first lady’s office responded to the president’s tweet through a   
   spokeswoman who reiterated what Melania Trump said in an April 2016 speech.    
      
   “As the First Lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets   
   attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” Stephanie Grisham, Melania   
   Trump’s communications director, said in a statement.    
      
   But there's evidence that the public is frustrated with the president's   
   Twitter use.      
      
   More than 6-in-10 registered voters say Trump should stop tweeting, including   
   49 percent of Republicans, according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted   
   ahead of Trump's latest attack and released Thursday.    
      
   And some Republicans in Congress said Trump crossed a line with his vulgar   
   message.    
      
   Following a hearing on U.S. Capitol Police, Republican Sen. James Lankford   
   said in a statement that the president “should model civility, honor, and   
   respect in our political rhetoric.  The President’s tweets today don’t   
   help our political or    
   national discourse and do not provide a positive role model for our national   
   dialogue.”    
      
   Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, who is a frequent critic, tweeted: “Please just   
   stop. This isn't normal and it's beneath the dignity of your office.”    
      
   House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi agreed, telling reporters that what Trump   
   tweeted was “so blatantly sexist” and “really saddens me because it is   
   so beneath the dignity of the president of the United States to engage in such   
   behavior.”    
      
   She also blasted her Republican colleagues who haven’t condemned the   
   president’s rhetoric. “The Republicans, they can tolerate almost anything   
   — a candidate beating up a reporter and then cheering him on as he arrives   
   in Congress, the tweets of    
   the president of the United States,” she said at her weekly news conference.   
   “They set a low standard for public officials in terms of their demeanor.”    
      
   Trump’s tweet dominated the conversation on a day when the House was   
   scheduled to vote on two immigration bills, the Senate was focused on getting   
   its Obamacare repeal legislation back on track, and part of the    
   dministration’s travel ban was set to    
   be enforced Thursday evening. The White House had also designated this   
   “energy week,” with Trump scheduled to deliver remarks at an energy event   
   at the Energy Department.    
      
   Republicans expressed frustration that the president's tweets do nothing to   
   further the GOP agenda.    
      
   Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is among the Republican holdouts on the   
   health care bill, tweeted: “This has to stop – we all have a job – 3   
   branches of gov’t and media. We don’t have to get along, but we must show   
   respect and civility.”    
   Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another skeptic of the GOP health bill,   
   tweeted, "Stop it! The Presidential platform should be used for more than   
   bringing people down."    
      
   Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham sent out a tweet chastising the White   
   House’s message discipline: “Today ALL comms coming out of WH shd be   
   focused on #KatesLaw and #NoSanctuaryforCriminalsAct -- not cable TV hosts.”    
      
   GOP strategist Rick Tyler, a former communications aide to Texas Sen. Ted   
   Cruz’s White House bid, told POLITICO that Trump’s tweets have “zero   
   benefit” and criticized the administration’s defense of them as   
   “childish.”    
      
      
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