Kamala Harris is pivoting to the center while Trump’s new policy ideas confuse Republicans

After the imbroglio about Donald Trump’s racist comments questioning whether Vice President Kamala Harris is in fact Black or Indian (she’s both), Senate Republicans immediately found themselves on the back foot once again.

Trump bizarrely floated the idea of eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, much to the GOP’s befuddlement.

It could not have come at a worse time. Republicans had just blocked a tax package that included plenty of incentives for businesses and an expanded Child Tax Credit on Thursday. They are doing this because they hope that if Trump wins and they flip the Senate in November, they can get a better deal where they can simply extend the 2017 tax cuts that Trump signed into law.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune seemed uncomfortable talking about it all as he waited for his car to leave Washington for South Dakota.

“Well, we’ll see,” Thune told The Independent, when asked about eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits might cost. “I mean, obviously, that's got a fairly big score. We'll cross all those bridges.”

Thune is in the running to become Republican leader in the Senate when Mitch McConnell steps aside later this year. As Whip, he’s responsible for counting votes. But he’s still very much a small-government, pro-business Republican and removing taxes on Social Security — to say nothing of Trump’s idea to remove taxes on tips — would blow a huge spending hole in the GOP’s plans. Frankly, they’d much rather use that money on corporate tax cuts or reducing the rate for top earners.

By contrast, Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, one of the biggest climate hawks in the Senate, said he was not fazed by reports that Kamala Harris had changed one of her own positions. Harris now