Republicans in Congress have largely wasted the primary month of their new majorities bickering over how a lot spending to chop, which points to prioritize, and what number of payments to place ahead. Whether or not they have the votes to enact their bold agenda stays unclear, however they’ve proven that they’ve simply sufficient to satisfy an equally essential goal: be certain that President Donald Trump can wage his assault on the federal authorities unimpeded.
Underneath the GOP’s watch, Congress has put up nearly no resistance whereas Trump and Elon Musk have shut down businesses, sidelined 1000’s of federal workers, and stopped congressionally accredited funds. As an alternative of defending their constitutional authority over spending, Republicans have cheered Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity and mocked Democrats for his or her protests. “In hopes of discovering themselves,” Home Speaker Mike Johnson instructed reporters on Tuesday, “they’ve latched on to this new, shiny object referred to as the rule of regulation.”
The GOP’s acquiescence is yet another signal of how tightly Trump now controls his occasion. But it surely additionally reveals one thing basic about Republicans’ haphazard makes an attempt over the previous twenty years to scale back the dimensions and scope of presidency. For the entire occasion’s fulminating concerning the nation’s debt and deficits, Republican lawmakers have shied away from taking votes to slash spending that might show unpopular with voters. Now they’re content material to let another person intestine the federal government for them—and take no matter political warmth comes with it.
“They’re making an attempt to have it each methods—cheering those that are doing this work for DOGE without having their identify on the precise payments,” former Consultant Bob Good of Virginia instructed me. Good, the earlier chair of the arch-conservative Home Freedom Caucus, left Congress final month after shedding in a GOP main. He’s a fan of DOGE, however he has watched begrudgingly as a few of his ex-colleagues have applauded cuts to authorities bureaucracies akin to USAID and the Division of Schooling that they refused to impact by laws. When a fellow conservative provided an modification in 2023 to slash USAID funding by half, Good famous, a majority of Republicans voted alongside Democrats to defeat it. “They gained’t undergo any threat or present any braveness,” Good mentioned.
Former Consultant Reid Ribble of Wisconsin instructed me that Musk is serving as a “patsy” for Republicans in Congress and for Trump, who has allowed the billionaire to shoulder the brunt of assaults from Democrats over DOGE. “They’ll now cross off accountability—and, extra importantly, accountability—to the nonelected individual that’s doing this,” Ribble instructed me.
Ribble was a part of the Home GOP Tea Celebration class of 2010, which swept Democrats out of the bulk partly by promising to curb federal spending. Though deficits did come down over the following years, Republicans new to Washington found that rolling again authorities was simpler mentioned than finished. Additionally they chafed at then-President Barack Obama’s makes an attempt to bypass congressional gridlock with government actions. As Obama used to say, “I’ve bought a pen, and I’ve bought a telephone.”
The technique infuriated conservatives, recalled former Consultant Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican and a onetime Obama antagonist who has since develop into a vocal Trump critic. “When Barack Obama even checked out a pen, Jim Jordan and I might scream,” Walsh instructed me, referring to the Trump loyalist who helped co-found the Freedom Caucus. Now, he famous, the identical conservatives who challenged Obama’s unilateral strikes are positive with Trump’s far more brazen use of government authority.
Ribble instructed me that he’d just lately implored a GOP Home member to “jealously guard” Congress’s energy over spending. “As a result of each single time you acquiesce to the manager,” Ribble mentioned he instructed the lawmaker, “you’re giving them energy and precedent for the following man to do the very same factor.” His recommendation appeared to fall flat. In response to Ribble, the Republican replied: “Yeah, however I like what they’re doing.”
Not all Republicans in Congress appear thrilled. A couple of, akin to Senator Susan Collins of Maine, have objected to the facility that Trump has given Musk. And others have labored to guarantee that their very own priorities—or these of their constituents—stay funded. However on the entire, congressional Republicans have both applauded DOGE’s actions, defeated Democratic makes an attempt to subpoena Musk, or stayed quiet. If something, the uproar over Musk’s marketing campaign has helped obscure their very own squabbling.
For greater than a month, Republicans within the Home and the Senate have been unable to agree on the sequence or scope of laws to advance Trump’s agenda. Senate Republicans need to first cross a invoice to ship cash to bolster the southern border and the Pentagon earlier than turning to an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Home Republicans, nonetheless, need to package deal the border funding, tax cuts, and spending reductions into what the president has vaguely described as “one large, lovely invoice.” Trump has supplied little path, and the 2 chambers have awkwardly raced in opposition to one another this week to advance their most popular laws in hopes of forcing lawmakers within the different chamber to relent.
A significant factor slowing Republicans down is the narrowness of their majorities, particularly within the Home, the place the occasion will want digital unanimity to cross something with out assist from Democrats. Good mentioned he hopes that Republicans in Congress will codify the momentary cuts that Trump and Musk have made, however he has his doubts. “If we don’t do it within the first 12 months,” Good mentioned, “I don’t assume it’s going to occur.”
Democrats, in the meantime, have tried in useless to pressure Trump and Musk to revive components of the federal government that the 2 have all however closed, together with USAID and the Client Monetary Safety Bureau. They’ve gained some early victories in courtroom however don’t have the votes to behave on their very own in Congress. Democrats’ greatest alternative could come subsequent month, when lawmakers must cross laws to maintain the federal government from shutting down completely. Lately, Republicans have turned to Democrats for assist in these funding fights, fearful that voters will blame them for the lack of providers that will outcome if the federal government closes. However some Democrats fear that they’ll have much less leverage beneath Trump, who presided over the longest shutdown in historical past throughout his first time period and has single-handedly frozen massive businesses in his second. “We already know that he’s at greatest detached to the results of a authorities shutdown,” Consultant Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the highest Democrat on the Home Oversight Committee, instructed me. “He’s not afraid of it.”
Connolly and his colleagues could should hope that GOP lawmakers—who face voters subsequent 12 months, not like Trump—come to worry a preferred backlash. Republicans have laid low throughout the chaotic early days of Trump 2.0, utilizing their majorities for little else moreover defending the president and confirming his Cupboard. However quickly, the obligations they’ve elided—funding the federal government and holding it working—will fall squarely on them.
