Sen. Lindsey Graham told me this morning about Trump’s call to delay the election: “I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea.” He declined further comment.

“Not answering any questions,” said Sen. Joni Ernst, who is in a tough race, when I asked about Trump’s tweet.

Sen. Mitt Romney defended mail-in voting, saying it works “extremely well. The great thing about it is that you have a paper document that if you need to do a recount you don't have to worry about machines having been tampered with.”

Romney added: “So I'm a fan of voting by mail, secondly, of course we are going to have an election on time. It's unthinkable that that would not be the case.” I asked if he could vote for Biden or who he would vote for, and he said he wouldn’t reveal that yet

GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer told me he thinks Trump’s tweet is meant as a distraction: “I think that if you guys take the bait he'll be the happiest guy in town. I read it. I laughed I thought my gosh this is going to consume a lot of people, except real people. And it was clever.”

Asked if it was appropriate for Trump do this as just a distraction, Cramer said: “I long ago stop being surprised by the things he does that other presidents wouldn't have done, but I also understand why he does it and why his base enjoys it so much.” He doesn’t support a delay

Sen. Thom Tillis, who is facing a tough reelection battle, said: “The election is going to happen in November period.”

Asked if it was appropriate for the President to question the integrity of the elections, Tillis said: “Talk to my staff.”

“The election is going to be held in November. Absentee ballots in North Carolina are strongly encouraged, as has the president encouraged them.“

Asked if he thought mail-in voting was safe, Tillis said: “Talk to my staff.”

Sen. Ted Cruz said: “Election fraud is a serious problem we need to stop it and fight it, but no the election should not be delayed.”

Sen. Marco Rubio said of Trump tweet: “I wish he hadn’t said that, but it’s not going to change: We are going to have an election in Novembe”

Asked Kevin McCarthy should Trump question integrity of the elections, and he argued that Trump is trying to distinguish between absentee voting (which he supports) and proactively sending out ballots. “I think what the President is questioning the integrity of mass ballots out”

“Never in the history of federal elections have we ever not held an election and we should go forward with our election,” McCarthy added

Grassley: “It doesn’t matter what one individual in this country says, we still are a country based on the rule of law.” Cornyn: “I think it’s a joke, I guess, I don't know how else to interpret it.” https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/30/politics/trump-election-tweet-republican-reaction/index.html

Lamar Alexander: “I'm going to go back and take a look at the Constitution because I think that the President's term and the vice presidents term expires on January 20 and if we were to delay the election past January 20, the President would be the Speaker of the House.”

Lamar Alexander got back to me and said — based on his understanding of the Constiution — the POTUS would be Senate president pro tem, not speaker of House, if elections were delayed past Jan 20. That’s because all House elections would be delayed and just 1/3 of Senate would be