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The conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill is that congressional Republicans in both chambers have effectively created a cult of personality devoted to Donald Trump. As the argument goes, these GOP lawmakers — some true believers, some too afraid to pretend they’re not true believers — see themselves as little more than sycophantic presidential employees whose job it is to praise, honor and obey the man in the Oval Office.
The conventional wisdom is easy to believe. But it’s also worth appreciating the degree to which some Republicans in Congress are starting to put some distance — not a lot, but a discernible distance — between themselves and Trump, the White House and MAGA overreach.
Though it didn’t generate a lot of headlines, Republican Rep. Gary Palmer made some provocative comments early last week, saying lawmakers “need to remind” Trump that “Congress has a role” in governing the country. “Not only does he need to work with Congress,” the Alabama congressman added, “in some of these, he has to work with Congress.”
Comments like this are becoming more common.
Republican Rep. Troy Balderson of Ohio spoke at an event in his local district this week and described the president’s flurry of executive orders as “getting out of control.” The GOP congressman added, “Congress has to decide whether or not the Department of Education goes away. Not the president, not Elon Musk. Congress decides.”
A day earlier, as The Alaska Daily News reported, one of Trump’s biggest intraparty critics went even further.
In a telephonic town hall Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that the recent mass firing of probationary federal employees violated the law and lacked ‘respect and dignity’ toward the workers who have lost their jobs, which in Alaska include dozens of scientists and park rangers, among others. In a call that drew more than 1,000 Alaskans, Murkowski also said that President Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold federal funding that had already been approved by Congress ‘cannot be allowed to stand.’
The Alaska Republican, echoing a line usually uttered by congressional Democrats, added, “We have to stand up.”
The list isn’t long, but there are other examples. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said the White House has gone too far in giving Musk governing authority. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has said Trump improperly fired inspectors general. A handful of GOP lawmakers in both chambers were willing to publicly disagree, on the record, with Trump’s latest efforts to align himself with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Have most of these criticisms been relatively muted and carefully worded? Yes. Are these Republicans still outnumbered on Capitol Hill by an 8-to-1 margin among GOP lawmakers who act like they’re willing to tattoo Trump’s face to their foreheads? Sure.
But one month into the president’s second term, Trump is demanding unflinching loyalty from his partisan brethren, and he’s confronting the kind of partisan skepticism he might have hoped to avoid.
Maybe this is the result of Trump’s falling approval rating. Maybe lawmakers are responding to pressure from their constituents. Maybe they’re noticing that other Trump skeptics within the party are getting away with public rebukes. Maybe the White House’s radicalism has just become too excessive for some members to stomach. Maybe it’s some combination of all of these.
Whatever the explanation, there are visible cracks in the Republican Party’s wall.
The next step, however, is the one that matters most. One month into Trump’s second term, some — not a lot, but some — GOP lawmakers are finally willing to inch away from their party’s scandal-plagued and increasingly unpopular president. Will this rhetoric be followed by meaningful actions? Watch this space.