While President Donald Trump’s occasional GOP detractors in Congress continue to grab headlines — on Venezuela, Greenland, health care, and even issues like Jeffrey Epstein — the reality on Capitol Hill remains the same as it’s been for the last year: The overwhelming majority of Republicans are in lockstep with the president.
Throughout the first year of his second term, Trump’s grip on the GOP has occasionally appeared tenuous. A small faction of Republicans break with the president from time to time, sometimes loudly.
But more often than not, even on issues where the American public is against Trump, most Republicans are standing firm with the president.
They follow Trump when he tells them how to vote on his legislative priorities, as he did with the reconciliation bill and unpopular spending rescissions. They refuse to call him out when he says obviously incorrect or offensive things. And they tolerate the president seizing power from Congress, even as many of these same lawmakers once called out Democrats for doing exactly that.
Thus far, that’s the real lesson of Trump’s second term — that Republicans are standing by him, through thick and thin, even when his actions make many lawmakers uneasy.
Perhaps no episode captures Trump’s power over the GOP better than Venezuela.
Days after the surprise attack and unauthorized capture of Nicolás Maduro, five Senate Republicans broke ranks and voted with Democrats to advance a war powers resolution that would have reined in the president’s unchecked military powers.
But the insurgency was short-lived.
A week later, following an intense lobbying campaign from Trump and the White House, two of the GOP defectors — Sen. Todd Young of Indiana and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri — reversed course. They flipped their votes to kill the resolution after they got bare minimum commitments from the administration to consult Congress before putting boots on the ground again in Venezuela.
Rather than serving as a check on the president, the ordeal illustrated that Trump can carry out a major military strike, without congressional approval or advance notice, and Republicans will ultimately jump to his defense.
Of course, Trump has his detractors.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has emerged as a consistent critic of the president’s freewheeling foreign policy and his attempts to block the release of Epstein files. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has again brought her independent streak to Trump’s second term. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has shown less patience for Trump’s more outlandish statements since announcing his retirement. The same is true of Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb. And a rotating group of vulnerable House Republicans has drawn contrasts with Trump to prove independence to swing-district voters.
All of those Republicans have unique and convincing explanations as to why it seems GOP lawmakers are increasingly breaking with the president.
Asked to describe Trump’s relationship with congressional Republicans, Massie summed it up in one word: “Abusive.”
“In his first presidency, a lot of Republicans were endeared to Trump and compelled to support him because we shared a goal,” Massie told MS NOW. “And just a year into this, I think a lot of Republicans are biting their tongue and doing things they’d rather not because they’re afraid of Donald Trump.”
Bacon said the idea that Republicans are breaking from Trump stems from the president’s many controversies — from Greenland to the Justice Department’s investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — becoming “a bridge too far for a lot of folks.”
But he also noted that most congressional Republicans are sticking with Trump because “people don’t want to get on the bad side.”
Many Republicans privately concede that’s true, and many stay quiet when they disagree with Trump. But there are also those vulnerable Republicans trying to make their opposition very clear to independent voters — while also not provoking the president or alienating GOP voters.
Not that Republicans want to acknowledge that dynamic publicly.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., one of the most moderate Republicans in Congress, said colleagues who break with Trump are simply “representing their districts.”
The closest MS NOW got to an admission that vulnerable Republicans strategically manage their Trump opposition was Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey saying other GOP lawmakers in his position are “on the edge.”
“They won by tiny, tiny amounts,” he said.
And yet, when the president needs votes — whether from the Freedom Caucus on reconciliation or from supposed moderates on rescissions — he’s usually able to get them.
Take the House rescissions vote. Two vulnerable House Republicans — Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Young Kim of California — initially held back their support for the bill codifying $9.4 billion in Department of Government Efficiency cuts to international aid and public broadcasting. Once it became clear their votes were needed, they both voted for the legislation.
To an extent, the seeming Trump opposition in Congress is a fig leaf for independence. The reality, GOP lawmakers told MS NOW, is that most Republicans stand firmly with Trump.
“This is still the president’s party — he has ultimate control, in my opinion, of what goes and what doesn’t go,” said Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, who worked in the White House during Trump’s first term. “He’s done a great job with the influence that he’s had over the conference and the Republican Party, and very much, I believe, the Republican Party is still the party of Donald J. Trump.”
Trump agrees — and he recently acknowledged that he’s had little problem convincing Republican holdouts to give him his votes.
“Usually, almost always, they’d give it,” Trump said during a speech at the House GOP policy retreat earlier this month. “But they wanted to be called.” In interviews with more than a dozen congressional Republicans, GOP lawmakers argued that Trump’s relationship with them remains strong. “It’s great,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said. “He’s accessible, he listens, and he’s got unbelievable energy. He’s like the energizer bunny.” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio., acknowledged that “there are people that will be anxious at certain times.” “But so far, he’s turning out roses everywhere you turn,” Davidson said. And in the words of Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., “It has been a phenomenal, successful year,” crediting the “coordinated effort between the administration and Republicans in the Senate and in the House.” Still, some Republicans sought to downplay Trump’s grip over the congressional GOP. “We have a good, collaborative relationship, but nothing is in lockstep,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said. “He’s got some ideas, we like some of them, some we like a little less, same thing for him with us, and that’s why we work stuff out.” That is sometimes true. But again and again, Republicans have shown a willingness to do the president’s bidding. Case in point: Congress approved two bills unanimously last month — one that supported a clean water project pipeline in Colorado, and one that would widen land for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida. Trump, however, vetoed the bills — a seemingly strange move when there was clearly enough support to override his vetoes. And yet, more than 175 Republicans ended up flipping their votes in the House to sustain both vetoes. Still, Democrats continue to focus on the instances when Republicans break from Trump, noting that while the president enjoys overwhelming support, his flagging poll numbers do seem to be having an effect on his support within the congressional GOP. “I think they appreciate that he’s becoming less and less popular every day,” Rep. Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, told MS NOW. “He’s probably below water in their districts.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also noted that more Republicans seem to be breaking with Trump on some issues — like the Epstein files and a recent vote on extending Obamacare subsidies. “Do I think everyone’s doing this out of the goodness of their own heart? Probably not,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But I do think that people are reading the writing on the wall.” But Republicans dismissed the blips as run-of-the-mill disagreements. “The only politician that I’ve agreed with on absolutely everything is me,” said longtime Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. “Everybody else in the world is a disappointment and a compromise.” “There are gonna be differences of opinions on a wide variety of issues, but you take policy in its totality,” he added. “And I would say that I have never seen a stronger relationship between a Republican conference and a Republican president.” As Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. told MS NOW: “If everybody agreed every time, this would be boring.”
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
