Donald Trump is in for a rude awakening that his grip on the Republican Party is not absolute.
In less than 24 hours, 38 Republicans in the House of Representatives rejected the relief bill that the president-elect publicly backed after undermining Speaker Mike Johnson’s original proposal to keep the federal government running last Friday. And their pushback came even as Trump and his allies threatened to mount primary challenges against Republican members who didn’t follow the rules.
It was just the latest example of Trump confronting the limits of his power, especially over his own party. Senate Republicans already dealt Trump a huge blow when a handful of them made it clear they would not support Trump’s first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, prompting him to withdraw. And that was after they chose John Thune over Rick Scott as Senate GOP leader, against the wishes of Trump’s allies.
While Republican lawmakers may ultimately give Trump what he wants, Thursday night’s vote showed that the Republican Party is far from fully aligned with the newly elected president.
“For a long time, there was always the cry of ‘who in the Republican Party will ever stand up to Trump?’ And now we definitely have it. But it may not be in an ideal way,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist appointed to Trump’s first administration.
“This is a turning point: how Trump responds from outside the caucus, how he deals with those who aren’t ready to make deals… this is really just preparing the battlefield and testing the waters for the next four years” , Bartlett said. .
Trump’s efforts to get Republicans to meet his demands ran directly into long-standing opposition from the Republican Party to raising the debt ceiling. Doing that is a big ask for fiscal conservatives, and viewed through that lens, it’s not surprising that the law passed.
While Trump had hailed the reworked deal as “SUCCESS in Washington” and urged “All Republicans, and even Democrats” to vote for the bill he called “VITAL to the America First Agenda,” some broke with his party ranking.
House Republicans are now considering a new financing proposal that would not extend or eliminate the debt ceiling, as Trump wanted. Trump has not yet taken a public position on the plan.
“Republicans campaigned on cutting spending and reducing the $35 trillion national debt. You can’t achieve that by suspending the debt limit,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) wrote on X on Thursday. “Until President-elect Trump takes office, I will not allow Joe Biden to extend an indefinite debt ceiling.”
Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.), another Republican who opposed the bill Thursday, said in a statement that he could not support a continuing resolution “that does not take into account our nation’s growing $36 trillion debt and debt ceiling which opens the checkbook so Congress can spend more money it doesn’t already have.”
And Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said on X that “ending reckless spending and immediately addressing the national debt” will allow Trump to “shake up the status quo.”
“I understand President Trump’s concern that a fight over the debt ceiling will delay implementation of his agenda, but to Make America Great Again we must end ‘business as usual’ in Washington here and now,” McCormick wrote .
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Their resistance is an early indication of areas where Republicans are ready to break with Trump’s policies — and a warning sign that while the new president has had broad influence over Johnson, that influence may not extend to every member of the ranks. the party will extend. file with each vote. And with such a small majority in the House of Representatives, resistance from just a few Republicans can have an impact.
“We talk about MAGA, Freedom Caucus, etc., but a significant portion of the conference is OG Tea Partiers,” said Doug Heye, a GOP strategist and Hill alum. “Raising the debt ceiling tests the limits of what would otherwise have enormous influence on the party.”
But Trump also has a challenging streak. In the hours since his favorite deal went up in flames, Trump began calling for an even further increase in the debt ceiling — until 2029.
And after Republicans helped undermine the second relief deal, Trump moved quickly to shift the blame for a potential government shutdown to President Joe Biden.
“Remember, the pressure is on whoever is president,” he wrote on his Truth Social website early Friday morning. Then, in a later message: “This is a Biden problem that needs to be solved, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!”
Still, some Republicans worry that the past few days are a sign that Trump, like his first term, may not get as much done as he hoped because, they say, he is focused on the wrong things.
One person close to Trump, who was granted anonymity to speak honestly, worried that the president-elect’s decision to use his political capital to unsuccessfully try to pass a new funding bill could fall back on his failed attempts to kill Obamacare early in his first term — instead of pursuing more popular policies like an infrastructure overhaul.
“I hope we’re not in the same place here,” the person said.
