WASHINGTON (AP) — The day arrived when the Senate just said, No.
President Donald Trump’s political revenge tour met its potential match this week as angry, upset Republican senators, pushed to a breaking point by his seemingly insatiable and outlandish demands — particularly a $1.776 billion fund for Jan. 6 rioters and others he believes were wrongly prosecuted — did the unthinkable.
They simply refused, closed up shop, and went home.
The moment was
as rare as it was daring, a sudden flex from the Congress that has become a shell of its former self as a coequal branch, the Republican majority almost always more willing to accommodate the Republican president than to confront him.
The result left in shambles, for now, the GOP's top priority of passing a roughly $70 billion budget package that would fuel Trump’s immigration and deportation operations for the remainder of his presidential term, into 2029. The voting was postponed until Congress resumes next month, blowing Trump's June 1 deadline to have it on his desk.
Trump, asked during an event at the Oval Office if he was losing control of the Senate, shrugged.
“I really don't know,” the president said.
It all caps a bruising week after the president swept midterm primary elections, taking down one Republican after another — Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky, and endorsing the challenger to Sen. John Cornyn in Texas — turning the might of his Make America Great Again movement against those who have stuck to their own views, rather than yield to his.
And it wasn’t just the Senate. In the Republican-led House, for the first time this year, enough GOP lawmakers broke ranks to signal support for a war powers resolution from Democrats designed to halt Trump’s military action in Iran. House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed voting until he could ensure an outcome that avoids confronting the president.
The endgame leaves Trump and the party exposed in new ways.
While the president is winning with his handpicked candidates, many are untested heading into general elections this fall. Trump's own approval rating sits at a low point, and he is spending his political capital, alienating his would-be allies and threatening to detail GOP priorities as they try to persuade voters to keep them in office.
Trump's announcement of nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for those the president believes were wrongly prosecuted came with little warning, and less support, blindsiding senators already fuming over his push for $1 billion to provide security for his new White House ballroom.
The audacity of the arrangement — Trump negotiating a settlement to his own lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service that would set up the compensation fund for those perceived to be wrongly prosecuted — proved too toxic for the Senate to bear.
“Under what circumstances would it ever makes sense to provide restitution for people who were either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law?” steamed Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Tillis derided the White House move as “stupid on stilts” and a “payout for punks.”
GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, who tends to keep his own counsel, issued his own a statement in the aftermath.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” McConnell said.
The political calculations were becoming apparent: The more Trump bullies and badgers the Congress, the more they are left questioning what they have to gain, or lose, from trying to appease him, especially for those already heading for the exits.
“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met for hours behind closed doors with senators over the compensation fund, but left without a resolution.
Afterward, Thune said the discussion likely left the administration’s team with “an appreciation for the depth of feeling on the issue.”
While Trump-backed candidates defeated Republican incumbents in the House and Senate this week, showing his command of the party faithful, some in Congress saw the defeats of their colleagues differently.
“You don’t want to have a totally loyal party that’s in the minority. And that's maybe where we’re headed,” said Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring at the end of his term.
It began Saturday, when Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial after Jan. 6, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger in Louisiana. He returned to Washington days later noticeably more eager to criticize Trump — and more willing to vote against him.
“Congress should hold the executive branch accountable,” Cassidy said Monday. A day later, he joined Democrats in voting to rein in the war in Iran.
Then came Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton over Cornyn in Texas, a move many Republicans viewed as both personal and politically reckless. Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
“There’s a lot of folks in our conference that are disappointed because we appreciate working with John Cornyn,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
Others worried the divisive Texas primary could jeopardize a seat Republicans cannot afford to lose.
“He made the wrong pick,” Tillis said. “It’s going to be a lot more expensive to hold that seat.”
In the House there were also signs of Republican discontent.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., joined Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in introducing legislation that would block taxpayer dollars from being used for Trump’s proposed “anti-weaponization” compensation fund.
Fitzpatrick also drew Trump’s ire after the president complained publicly that the congressman “likes voting against Trump” and warned, “You know what happens with that?”
But Fitzpatrick insisted the backlash inside the party was driven by policy concerns, not political fear.
“People have the right to free speech in this country,” Fitzpatrick said. “But what we do here is all about policy.”
At the same time, Fitzpatrick and Republican Michigan Rep. Tom Barrett were expected to side with Democrats in voting for the war powers resolution to rein in Trump’s military campaign in Iran.
GOP leaders pulled the measure at the last minute when it became clear Republicans lacked the votes to defeat it.
Bacon, who spent some 30 years on active duty in the Air Force, said he believed much of the Republican pushback to the war could be resolved if Trump consulted Congress more.
“You sit down with somebody, and work with them instead of threatening, bully and yelling,” said Bacon. “It don’t work.”
