Donald Trump is getting a rude awakening that his grip on the GOP isn’t absolute.
Over the past 48 hours, 38 House Republicans rejected the stopgap spending bill that the president-elect publicly threw his weight behind after tanking Speaker Mike Johnson’s original proposal to keep the federal government running past Friday. Their defiance came even as Trump and his allies threatened to field primary challenges against GOP members who didn’t fall in line.
Then, on Friday night and early Saturday, the House and Senate passed a different version of the spending plan — one that didn’t include Trump’s demand to extend or end the debt limit.
It’s the latest example of Trump confronting the limits of his power, especially over his own party. Senate Republicans already dealt Trump a massive blow when a handful of them made clear they wouldn’t support Trump’s first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, leading to him withdrawing. And that was after they chose John Thune over Rick Scott for Senate GOP leader against the wishes of Trump’s allies.
Taken together, rank-and-file Hill Republicans’ early rebuffs of Trump show the party is far from total lock-step with the president-elect.
“For a long time there were always calls for ‘who in the Republican Party will ever stand up to Trump?’ And now we certainly have it. But it may not be in an ideal way,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and appointee in Trump’s first administration.
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