President Donald Trump remains the clear leader of the Republican party. Yet his grip is weakening among Republicans on Capitol Hill who’ve grown frustrated by what they view as increasingly brazen decisions in his second term.
Republicans are still on track to muscle through a top party priority next week, delivering $70 billion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection funding. But even that measure had been at serious risk of collapse in recent weeks after Republicans revolted over Trump’s insistence for a $1.8 billion settlement fund that critics say is intended to reward his political supporters.
While Senate GOP leaders successfully quashed much of that dissent, the days of bitter wrangling exposed cracks in Trump’s base of support on Capitol Hill. There is now a growing chorus of Republicans — and not just the usual defectors — willing to defy him as they seek to rein in his pursuit of his agenda, ranging from projects like the White House ballroom and exacting political retribution on his enemies to his handling of the Iran war and other foreign policy issues. The trend is only expected to accelerate as the November elections approach, with contentious fights ahead like Trump’s push to confirm his controversial expected pick to lead the Department of Justice.
Though GOP lawmakers remain largely supportive of the White House’s broader agenda, they have privately complained that Trump and his spate of unpopular decision-making – including endorsing against incumbent lawmakers in GOP primaries – have become a chief obstacle to accomplishing much of his otherwise-appealing policy goals, people familiar with the private discussions said.
“I don’t understand the calculus of letting the president just go out on this warpath,” one of those people said of Trump’s retribution campaign, which grew more unsettling for Republicans with his appointment of MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte to the top intelligence job. “That’s where the resentment is. People just want their gas prices to go down.”
Trump’s recent moves — from Pulte to the ballroom to the $1.8 billion fund — have increasingly grated on Senate Republicans, who now worry that the president’s falling approval ratings could cost them control of the chamber, an outcome few saw as a possibility as recently as six months ago. (Some privately blame Trump directly for the risk to the Senate majority, after his recent decision to meddle in a high-stakes Texas GOP primary in favor of a baggage-laden candidate.)
“There’s this realization … if no one’s looking out for me, I have to look out for myself,” one senior GOP aide said, describing vulnerable lawmakers’ calculation to defy Trump on the floor this week. Hill Republicans are increasingly frustrated, this person said, that Trump appears to be “recklessly” undermining their own party’s message to everyday Americans.
More than a dozen Senate Republicans took symbolic votes to register their discontent with Trump, opposing his push for the settlement fund, his pricey East Wing ballroom, installing Pulte to lead US intel operations, strict voter ID laws and more. Those votes came during a marathon session to consider amendments to the $70 billion immigration bill.
And Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against that full package of immigration funding — something she would normally support — in part because she said it allowed the Trump administration too much power over where the money would go, with diminished oversight from Congress.
Across the Capitol, House Republicans delivered critical messages of their own. For the first time since the Iran war began in February, the House voted to direct Trump to pull out of the conflict, with a small bloc of GOP lawmakers in support. A day later, nearly 20 Republicans voted to rebuke Trump’s handling of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, bucking party leaders to support a Democratic sanctions package.