Republican Congressman Mark Sanford said Wednesday the "honeymoon period" with President Donald Trump is coming to an end.
Sanford said the recent statements by Republican lawmakers about the president signals a tipping point between Trump and Capitol Hill.
"I think that everybody gives a new president something of a honeymoon – it's coming to a close," Sanford told CNN's "Newsroom."
Sanford was asked about the contradicting statements between Trump and Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto about whether the two had talked about how well operations are going at the southern border, to which Sanford said, "I'm as clueless as you are."
"I think that's the bigger issue you are probably raising, which is the president has said a lot of strange things, at times things that weren't accurate," Sanford told CNN. "That begs to the larger issue of trust and that's something that I think a lot of people in this country are struggling with.
"I guess it's trust, but verify him. That was Ronald Reagan's term. I think for all of us as policy makers, any statement, whether it's the president or anybody else that we deal with in the supply change of legislation, it's important to trust, but ultimately to verify," Sanford said.
And that ties in to the sanctions bill on Russia that Congress put on the desk of Trump, who called the measure "seriously flawed."
"Increasingly, Congress will assert itself," Sanford said. "What it did with that sanctions bill was to tie the president's hands in his ability to unilaterally negotiate with Russia. That's a new development that you probably wouldn't have seen 100 or 200 days ago. It's the case now.
"I think it's a combination of things. It's the ending of the honeymoon period. I think it's some of the president's own actions that has brought this about," Sanford said.
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