DeMint calls Trump deal with Democrats a ‘betrayal’

Jim DeMint, a former U.S. senator and Tea Party leader, decried President Trump’s move to accept a deal with Democratic leaders on a short-term debt ceiling increase, saying Wednesday that it was a “betrayal” of Republican principles.

“It’s just a betrayal of everything we’ve been talking about for years as Republicans,” DeMint told Politico. “What the president’s going to find is … if they bet on Democratic votes they better plan on [giving up] a lot more than they think they’re going to.”

DeMint, who was ousted as the conservative Heritage Foundation’s president earlier this year, has long been an ardent defender of Trump. 

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The deal, which Trump cut with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), would temporarily stave off the threat of a government shutdown until December. 

But Republicans sought on Wednesday to distance themselves from the plan.

Not an hour earlier before Trump announced the deal had Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) trashed the Democrats’ proposal as “disgraceful.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that he would support the debt-ceiling deal, but noted that it was indeed one struck without the input of congressional Republicans. 

And Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) was blunt in his criticism, writing on Twitter that the “Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad.”