Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lost two members of his caucus yesterday -- one announced his retirement, and the other lost a primary. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Republicans' messy day

THE BIG PICTURE -- REPUBLICANS’ MASSIVE MESS.

-- PRESIDENT TRUMP went all in for a Senate candidate -- following Mitch McConnell’s lead -- and was thoroughly embarrassed, losing to Roy Moore, a man who many in D.C. have said is not fit to serve in Washington.


-- ROY MOORE ran a campaign almost entirely against MITCH MCCONNELL. So, if Moore wins in December -- a good, but not great, bet -- the Kentucky Republican will be working with a functional majority of 51 lawmakers, making passing any big legislation that much harder. With that partisan makeup, two defections will sink anything.

-- DEMOCRATS ARE ALREADY HOPING they can tie the firebrand Moore to other Republican candidates for federal office. There are far too many inflammatory lines for this space, but just recently, Roy Moore lamented racial tensions between “reds and yellows.” He has a long history of those types of remarks.

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-- WITH THE FAILURE OF GRAHAM-CASSIDY, Republicans do not have a single major legislative victory going into October. They are counting on a tax code rewrite to carry them into the 2018 election year.

-- WHAT HAPPENED TO INFRASTRUCTURE? Well, according to WaPo’s Tory Newmyer and Damian Paletta, Trump has abandoned his plan to include the private sector in funding a massive public works program, which means states and local governments would have to pony up. To put it bluntly -- Republicans are nowhere on this front. If they played their cards right, they could've gotten several moderate Democrats to support an infrastructure package. Tory and Damian’s story http://wapo.st/2wjauQ1

-- THE TAX BLUEPRINT THAT WILL BE UNVEILED TODAY will be vague and leave a lot for lawmakers to decide down the road. There are many reasons why tax reform is a good deal harder than the White House thinks. Republicans don’t want to hike taxes on rich folks, and anything sniffing of that will be difficult. Margins in both chambers are incredibly thin. There are less than 40 days left in the legislative year. The White House has indicated it believes it will get Democratic support, but it’s clear if you spend a few moments talking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill the vast majority of Democrats aren’t much interested in supporting a plan they had no say in.

-- REMEMBER THIS: Six Republicans crafted the tax blueprint behind closed doors. Now 535 lawmakers with opinions will have a say in the details. And thousands of lobbyists looking to protect their carve outs will get in on the action.

-- SEN. BOB CORKER’S RETIREMENT is another blow to Senate Republicans. The two-term Tennessee Republican is a key ally of McConnell’s but many thought he would have faced a primary opponent from the right. Now, the primary to succeed him will be messy, and the general could be surprisingly challenging for Republicans. He could be just the first Senate GOPer looking for the exits before the 2018 midterm election.

