Immediately after Senate Republicans advanced their party’s domestic policy megabill — the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act — attention quickly shifted to the House, where the far-right legislation faced an uncertain future.
In theory, there was a real chance that the bill would be, at a minimum, changed upon its arrival in the lower chamber. After all, quite a few House Republicans declared, publicly and in no uncertain terms, that they considered the Senate version completely unacceptable. If just four of them stuck to their guns, GOP leaders would have to regroup and work out a new solution.
But in practice, those intraparty critics did exactly what most observers expected them to do: One by one, House Republicans caved. The New York Times reported on part of the process that led so many GOP members to collapse under pressure:
A conga line of angsty Republican lawmakers filed through the West Wing on Wednesday, hemming and hawing about the big domestic policy bill that President Trump wants them to pass by Friday. They walked out with signed merchandise, photos in the Oval Office and, by some accounts, a newfound appreciation for the bill — targets all of a blunt-force charm offensive waged with precision by the president.
“The president was wonderful, as always,” Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee said in a video he released documenting his White House visit. “Informative, funny, he told me he likes seeing me on TV, which was kind of cool.” In the same clip, Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida asks Burchett, “Did you show them what he signed for you?” The Tennessean replied, “Yeah, he signed a bunch of stuff. … It’s cool.”
Well, it was something, though “cool” isn’t the first adjective to come to mind.
Part of the problem, of course, is that many GOP lawmakers, who claimed to have principled objections to the package, took direction from a president who doesn’t appear to know much about the legislation he’s desperate to sign. As recently as Wednesday, the day before the final vote, NOTUS reported: “Trump still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp about what his signature legislative achievement does.”
Another part of the problem is that the president, despite his ignorance, was able to sway skeptical members with smoke and mirrors. When he wasn’t scoring cheap points with autographed merchandise, Trump was offering House Republicans assurances about executive orders that might exist — someday, in some form, with some contents that’ll be worked out later, which might overcome legal challenges.
But stepping back, it’s equally important to appreciate the degree to which GOP lawmakers have devolved of late. In the aftermath of the Capitol Hill vote, a great many observers repeated an understandable complaint: “Republicans always cave under pressure.”
That’s not, however, entirely true. In fact, in recent years, many of these same GOP members didn’t cave, much to the chagrin of House Speaker Mike Johnson, his predecessors and his fellow party leaders.
Around this time a year ago, we talked about the incredible dysfunction among House Republicans, who struggled mightily to complete basic tasks in the last Congress, slowing legislative progress to a pace unseen in nearly a century. A Punchbowl News report concluded at the time, “This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress.”
The chaos was the direct result of GOP members sticking to their guns and shrugging off the demands of party leaders. It routinely created dynamics in which House Republicans had to sheepishly turn to the Democratic minority, hat in hand, to secure the votes necessary to advance must-pass legislation, precisely because so many rank-and-file GOP members didn’t back down under party pressure. The pitiful House Republican conference that Americans are watching in 2025, in other words, is a relatively new phenomenon — and a reminder that the contemporary GOP is less of a political party and more of an embarrassing personality cult. “A functioning House leadership team would work the members, make changes as necessary and bring this bill to the floor once they knew they could pass it,” Democratic Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois wrote online in the midst of a multi-hour delay on Wednesday. “But Mike Johnson is not a leader. He does what Daddy says, and Daddy said pass it before July 4.” The day before the final vote in the House, Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, acknowledging the partisan impressions, told reporters, “The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little b—-es around here, OK? I’m a member of Congress. I represent almost 800,000 Wisconsinites.” A day later, Van Orden voted for Trump’s radical bill, at Trump’s behest, ahead of Trump’s arbitrary and unnecessary deadline.
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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