Could we really be at the point where Republicans have had enough? Or will they regroup after the holiday, after getting fresh threats from Donald Trump—and perhaps violent warnings from his thugs—and once again bow to him?
That remains to be seen. But this week we saw something we’ve yet to see in Trump’s second term: The GOP completely melting down, canceling votes, going home, angry at one another and at Trump, all tearing one another apart. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other leaders stood there bewildered, trying but failing to explain this mess to the press.
We like them tearing one another apart, for sure. The outrageous, unprecedented $1.8 billion terrorist slush fund, coming right after the billion dollar ballroom, was enough to throw Senate Republicans into chaos and recriminations, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, to offer just one example, attacking Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—who’d stunningly accused critics of just not understanding how normal all of this is—charging that he was engaging in “utterly stupid, morally wrong” behavior.
Given a June 1 deadline by Trump to re-open the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration agencies, Senate Republicans crashed and burned, leaving town and blowing through that deadline. Democrats have been enormously successful at stopping funding of ICE and DHS’s immigration enforcement agencies, keeping them shut down (even as ICE has plenty of money from the big bad bill).
The GOP has been forced to try to pass the ICE funding via budget reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes. But then Trump made them add the ballroom with a price tag of a billion dollars—previously supposedly being paid by private donors—into the bill. The Senate parliamentarian ruled the ballroom couldn’t pass in reconcilation. In the meantime, on his revenge tour, Trump destroyed the careers of both Senator Bill Cassidy and Rep. Thomas Massie, who now appear to be going on their own revenge tours against Trump until the end of their terms.
Trump always does himself in. Cassidy, fresh off losing in his primary last week to a Trump-backed MAGA candidate—as Trump was determined to slay Cassidy after he’d voted to impeach him for inciting an insurrection back in 2021—voted for the war powers resolution in the Senate, this week becoming the deciding vote to finally pass the measure that would mandate Congress decide on the war in Iran.
And Senate Republicans became livid with Trump on Tuesday for endorsing Ken Paxton in next Tuesday’s Senate primary runoff in Texas, after they’d spent millions trying to help Senator John Cornyn keep his seat. As I wrote earlier, some Senate Republicans think the GOP could lose Texas because of Trump’s endorsement. Even if they win they will have to spend tons of money in Texas, at a time when the Senate is now in play and they need that money elsewhere. Why the hell should they help Trump, they surely were asking themselves, if he wasn’t going to help him?
Cassidy, unchained, then made it clear he was not about to fund any ballroom for Trump. (By the way, politicians like Cassidy are not to be lauded now; they went along with it all when they thought they’d be saved, and ultimately they’re cowards.) So did several other Republicans in the Senate. The ballroom was pretty much doomed. Democrats had been ready to add a ton of amendments about the ballroom and make Republicans vote on it.
But once that was out of the way, Democrats had something else about which they could add amendments to the ICE funding bill: the terrorist slush fund, taxpayer dollars stolen by Trump and his crooked acting attorney general in a bogus “settlement” on a bogus “lawsuit.” The idea that money would be going to people who committed all kinds of crimes—the Orwellian “Anti-Weaponization Fund”—including violent criminals who’d attacked the Capitol and bludgeoned cops, landed like an atom bomb on Capitol Hill. The story blew up across the country—people were outraged—and you know the congressional switchboard was jammed.
Again, how stupid is Trump? You would think that as inflation continues to soar and gas prices are skyrocketing as a result of his badly managed war of choice, he’d at least wait on establishing this “fund” for a few days, until the DHS vote was passed. Sure, it would still be an issue moving forward and cause a blowup among the GOP anyway—and is another disaster for them for the midterms—but you’d at the very least get DHS opened up and have Republicans going home with some sort of accomplishment.
But no, they go home instead to an uproar from their constituents about this “fund” in addition to the war and gas prices.
But wait, it gets worse. After the Senate passed a war powers resolution—thanks to Cassidy, who Trump could have counted on sticking with him if he’d not backed a primary against him—more Republicans in the House got some balls. Just before the House was to vote on a war powers resolution on Thursday, bumbling House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled it because he didn’t have the votes, and, like the Senate leader, sent everyone home. This was beyond embarrassing and just contributed to the GOP meltdown. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania—a Republican who was going to vote for it—said the votes won’t be any different when they come back, so they should have just voted.
Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan rightly called the GOP “chickenhawk mother-------.” This is beyond a s--- show. The GOP seems to be coming apart at the seams, under the weight of Trump, who has no clue about what he’s doing.
Apparently, the anger among GOP senators over the slush fund—and the fear of taking votes—was compounded by Todd Blanche privately meeting with them Thursday, in what was described as a contentious meeting that became a disaster.
This is how we know the White House is freaking out too, unable to manage Trump or the Congressional GOP. By sending Blanche to answer questions before senators earlier in the week in a public hearing—at the last minute canceling a trip he’d planned—they clearly weren’t expecting the uproar over the slush fund to be so big. As with the war in Iran, they were completely unprepared. The private meeting with GOP senators didn’t change anything, and seemed to make it worse.
All of this shows that while Trump is simply out of his mind—nothing surprising—the White House is in a bubble, as most Republicans have been. But Senate and House Republicans are starting to experience reality outside the bubble. It’s all becoming too intense for them. Again, we’ll have to wait to see if this is a real breaking point, but so far it’s looking like their turmoil will continue. And Democrats just need to keep stoking it.