Senate

As reported moments ago, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake unexpectedly announced his retirement from the Senate and that also he will not seek re-election in 2018 (which is less surprising in light of his abysmal, 18% approval rating), but not before delivering one of the most scathing anti-Trump speeches by a Republican yet, and vowing to spend the next 14 months making Trump's life a living hell, and also pretty much guaranteeing that tax reform is now on the verge of collapse.

Fresh of his latest feud with outgoing Senator Bob Corker, Donald Trump was headed toward a GOP policy lunch in the Senate when a protester threw Russian flags at Trump as he was walking in the Capitol building, while shouting "Trump is treason" as the president walked by.

"Why are you talking about tax cuts when you should be talking about treason?" the man shouted as caught on social media videos.

Despite early polling showing him to be a favorite to defeat Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, Robert James Ritchie – better known as the musician Kid Rock – told Howard Stern on Tuesday that he will not be running for senate in 2018.

Update (10:30 am ET): With just hours to go before Trump's lunchtime meeting with Congressional Republicans, the president is heaping still more twitter scorn on one of his biggest perceived foes, Tennessee Senator and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker.

This time, he's focusing on Corker's foreign-policy work. The president previously criticized Corker for helping create the Iran deal.

Now that the Senate has passed the $4 trillion federal budget, unlocking the reconciliation process and clearing the way for tax reform, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are hashing out the finer points of tax reform.