Republican frustration with President Trump Donald John TrumpFederal prosecutor speaks out, says Barr 'has brought shame' on Justice Dept. Former Pence aide: White House staffers discussed Trump refusing to leave office Progressive group buys domain name of Trump's No. 1 Supreme Court pick MORE is boiling over in the wake of his incendiary tweets on Thursday attacking MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski.

GOP lawmakers lambasted Trump for his attack, which came days after the White House suffered a political setback with the postponement of a Senate vote on the GOP’s healthcare plan.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski Lisa Ann MurkowskiDemocratic senator to party: 'A little message discipline wouldn't kill us' Overnight Energy: Trump officials finalize plan to open up protected areas of Tongass to logging | Feds say offshore testing for oil can proceed despite drilling moratorium | Dems question EPA's postponement of inequality training Poll: 57 percent of Americans think next president, Senate should fill Ginsburg vacancy MORE (R-Alaska) tweeted at the president, “Do you want to be remembered for your tweets or your accomplishments?”

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Several other GOP senators, including Susan Collins Susan Margaret CollinsDemocratic senator to party: 'A little message discipline wouldn't kill us' Poll: 57 percent of Americans think next president, Senate should fill Ginsburg vacancy On The Trail: Making sense of this week's polling tsunami MORE (Maine), Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamLincoln Project mocks Lindsey Graham's fundraising lag with Sarah McLachlan-themed video The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Republicans lawmakers rebuke Trump on election Trump dumbfounds GOP with latest unforced error MORE (S.C.), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and even arch-conservative James Lankford (Okla.), expressed dismay at Trump’s tweet.

Uncertainty over where Trump and his administration will now turn their focus, coupled with fears about the president’s unpredictability, amplified the Republican frustration.

Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanKenosha will be a good bellwether in 2020 At indoor rally, Pence says election runs through Wisconsin Juan Williams: Breaking down the debates MORE (R-Wis.) at a press conference sought to call attention to votes cracking down on crime by undocumented immigrants, a central issue of Trump’s campaign. He instead fielded questions about Trump’s tweets and healthcare.

There were signs Thursday of what Trump and his team wanted to emphasize — and of what a more traditional White House messaging operation might look like.

The administration wanted this to be an energetic week, and Trump announced actions at a separate event on efforts to boost fossil fuels.

At a White House press briefing, Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser, emphasized that trade and steel issues would come up on Trump’s second foreign trip next week, during which he will attend a meeting of the G-20 in Hamburg.

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But talk on any of these subjects was essentially vaporized by Trump’s comments about Brzezinski, which dominated the news cycle.

The president complained on Twitter that Brzezinski and her on-and-off-screen partner, Joe Scarborough, had “insisted on joining” him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida around New Year’s Eve.

“She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” Trump tweeted.

One by one, GOP lawmakers blasted Trump over the remarks.

Collins, one of the Republicans opposed, at present, to the Senate healthcare plan, told Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s “MTP Daily” that Trump should end his Twitter use.

Among the broader community of Republicans, the criticism was even harsher.

“I am newly aghast that Donald Trump is president of the United States of America,” said Florida-based GOP consultant John Stipanovich, who asserted that Trump “is an embarrassment to everyone who has the slightest regard for the dignity of the office.”

Stipanovich, a frequent Trump critic with long connections to the Bush family, also lamented the likelihood that the president’s words would be counterproductive to hopes of pushing a GOP legislative agenda.

“I conclude from this behavior that he doesn’t give a damn about accomplishing his agenda because he does nothing but make it harder for people who want to help him do that,” he said.

Publicly, the White House defended Trump. Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that Trump showed the dignity of the office “every day” and that his comments about Brzezinski amounted to self-defense against a show from which he receives frequent and trenchant criticism.

“I don’t think that it’s a surprise to anybody that he fights fire with fire,” Sanders said. “The things that this show has called him — and not just him but numerous members of his staff, including myself and many others — are very deeply personal.”

Other allies of the president joined the uphill battle to keep some focus on policies.

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced punitive measures against a Chinese bank that he said was suspected of money laundering pertaining to North Korea. More broadly, Mnuchin reiterated that the administration was “100 percent committed” to enacting tax reform this year.

A short time before, Cohn and national security adviser H.R. McMaster previewed the president’s foreign trip. The G-20 summit will see a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which is sure to generate intense interest given the probes into Russian meddling in the presidential election, including allegations of cooperation between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

McMaster argued that it was a priority for the administration to “confront Russia’s destabilizing behavior” on the world stage.

Others in Trump’s orbit are still holding out hope of some kind of healthcare deal, even if it proves less expansive than the full repeal the president promised on the campaign trail.

Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax Media and a Trump friend, emphasized that it was up to the president where to put his focus, but said, “I think he should not give up on healthcare.”

Ruddy asserted that Trump had been badly served by Ryan, who took the lead on the issue, and added that the president was a more inherently flexible figure than his GOP counterparts on Capitol Hill.

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“That is the authentic Donald Trump,” he added. “These other guys are very ideologically rigid.”

The president himself turned his Twitter back to relatively uncontroversial use late afternoon Thursday, commending the House for passing “Kate’s Law,” which gets its informal name from the late Kathryn Steinle, who was killed in San Francisco in 2015 by an undocumented immigrant who had previously been deported five times.

The law stiffens penalties for criminals who have been deported and illegally re-enter the United States.

“Good news, House just passed #KatesLaw. Hopefully Senate will follow,” Trump tweeted.

The news, positive though it was for the administration, seemed likely to provide only a brief relief from the Brzezinski affair — yet another storm of the president’s own making.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.