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Article snippet: Two Senate Republicans on Tuesday called on their party to take on President Trump in separate scathing assessments of his public conduct and leadership. The unprecedented criticism from Sens. MORE (R-Tenn.) overshadowed what the White House and GOP leadership hoped would be a day of unity on the party’s biggest agenda item: tax reform. It also demonstrated the deep fissures Trump and his GOP antagonists are creating within their party, which threaten his agenda and complicate Republican efforts to retain control of the House and Senate in next year’s elections. Flake shocked Washington by announcing he’d become the second GOP senator to retire at the end of the Congress rather than fight off a Trump-fueled primary challenger. The other retiring senator is Corker, who on Tuesday morning predicted that Trump would be remembered in the history books for “debasing” his country. Flake offered a similar, if more refined, critique of Trump’s effect on his party and the government in an address from the Senate floor, which won applause from more than a dozen senators — including Corker, Sen. MORE (R-Ky.) — at its conclusion. It also offered a blistering take on Republican acquiescence in the age of Trump, which Flake said represented a compromise in moral authority. “Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our... Link to the full article to read more