Pelosi to force Republicans to go on record on Trump’s tweets

WASHINGTON — Democrats and President Donald Trump are on a collision course over his “go back” tweets directed at four Democratic members of Congress of color, and it’s Republicans who could be crushed in the middle.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is preparing a vote in the House of Representatives on a resolution condemning what she called “disgraceful” and “xenophobic language” in Trump’s tweets Sunday.

Democrats condemning Trump, even in a formal way, may not seem that interesting. But calling for the resolution is a politically smart maneuver by Pelosi, for a couple of reasons.

She has recently been accused by her House Democratic colleagues of not being tough enough on Trump. Despite her opposition, 85 Democrats want to start impeachment proceedings against Trump, which is more than one-third of all of House Democrats. Pelosi has so far kept the lawmakers that matter most — those leading the committees handling investigations into Trump — to stay the course. But her no-impeachment stance has bred tension between her and some of her caucus’s more liberal members.

This resolution gives Democrats an outlet to publicly reprimand the president. A resolution is a symbolic vote — it carries with it no legislative weight, and it can’t oust the president — but sometimes in Congress, symbolism matters. These Democrats will go down in the history books as leading a chamber of Congress to condemn the tweets of the president. That’s a first.

But the resolution may have more politically potent ramifications for House Republicans. They will be forced to choose between what for them are two politically bad options: Vote for the resolution in what will be seen as unequivocal rebuke of Trump’s words, or vote against it in what could be seen as a tacit approval of the sentiments he expressed in those tweets.