Donald Trump has suffered through plenty of awful days this year, but few could compete with the events that unfolded on Thursday.
Over the course of roughly six hours, the president learned that a federal judge had ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be released from immigration custody, a grand jury had again rejected an effort to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James, Republicans in Indiana’s state Senate had rejected his radical redistricting scheme and an Associated Press poll found that two-thirds of Americans reject his handling of the economy.
As days in the White House go, this one was pretty rough for the hapless incumbent.
At least Trump can still count on the sycophantic and obedient House Republican conference to make his days a little brighter, right? Wrong. NBC News reported:
The House approved a measure Thursday to reinstate collective bargaining rights to federal workers, a step toward restoring labor union protections for nearly 1 million federal employees.
The rare bipartisan vote, 231-195, marks the first time the House has voted to nullify an executive order from President Donald Trump this term.
The president signed an executive order months ago that sought to end collective bargaining with a variety of federal departments and agencies. A bipartisan duo — Democratic Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania — drafted the Protect America’s Workforce Act to undo what Trump did.
Naturally, House GOP leaders ignored the effort, but Golden and Fitzpatrick launched a discharge petition that reached 218 signatures a few weeks ago.
That set the stage for a floor vote that House Speaker Mike Johnson couldn’t derail, and the bill passed with 20 House Republicans voting with the Democratic minority.
As a substantive matter, the vote was a big victory for federal workers, but as a political matter, this was the first time all year in which the GOP-led House approved legislation to reject one of Trump’s directives. In the process, House members made Trump’s dreadful day just a bit worse, while simultaneously making Johnson look even weaker. The Protect America’s Workforce Act now heads to the Senate, where it faces an uncertain fate. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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