Republicans defy Trump, a rarity

BY LISA MASCARO AND JOEY CAPPELLETTI

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON – 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 derail GOP priorities as they try to persuade voters to keep them in office.

Anger in the Senate over Trump’s ‘payout for punks’

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 make sense to provide restitution for people who either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law?” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said.

Tillis derided the White House move as “stupid on stilts” and a “payout for punks.” Trump fired back Friday morning, accusing Tillis of “screwing the Republican Party” in a lengthy social media post.

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.”

Trump’s victories come at a cost

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 May 16, 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 May 18. A day later, he joined Democrats in voting to rein in the war in Iran.

Then came Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton over John 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.”

“He made the wrong pick,” Tillis said. “It's going to be a lot more expensive to hold that seat.”

Frustration extends beyond the Senate

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.

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,” Bacon said. “It don’t work.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, heads to a closed-door meeting with Republican senators at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday.

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/

Associated Press