GOP rebels prep to tear apart Trump’s agenda as MAGA ranks dissolve

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy looks on as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on April 22, 2026. REUTERS

New York Times columnists say the “you only live once” (YOLO) caucus of the Republican Party is preparing to upset Trump’s plans just as his beleaguered GOP Congress slides into a Democratic changeover in November.

“John Cornyn (R-Texas) is a member of the Senate Republican leadership team, but having lost his re-election bid, he’s now eligible to join the Louisiana Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary in the … YOLO Republicans [caucus],” said retired radio journalist and NYTimes columnist Robert Siegel. “The idea is that you’ve been loyal to Donald Trump in nearly everything, but now that you’ve been defeated by a MAGA-backed opponent, you’re a lame duck. You can actually vote in accordance with your real principles, assuming you can remember what those were.”

Under this scenario YOLO Republicans might “actually influence events now that their spines are out of storage,” Siegel added.

Conservative columnist Mona Charen said already the so-called caucus, containing Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) are “making some pretty forthright statements” regarding Trump’s unpopular slush fund. And NYTimes columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., said if the three of them vote together it could pressure Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to cast “no” votes that up to now had no real effect on Senate proceedings.

But even as this emerging caucus of Trump dissonance gears up to break the president’s iron hold on the U.S. Senate, Republican voters are getting discouraged by the president’s antics enough to stay home.

“In September 2022, only 38 percent of Republicans identified as MAGA Republicans,” said Dionne. “As of May, the proportion had risen to 62 percent, so this party is MAGA-fied. But in the electorate as a whole, the only people becoming MAGA are Republicans, so that Americans who call themselves MAGA rose from only 11 percent to 19 percent. So, MAGA’s a really small percentage, and what I would call the MAGA gap between the Republicans and the rest of the country has gone from 27 percent to 43 percent.”

Look no further than the “sharp turnout declines” in the Republican primary, Dionne said.

“In the first round of the Texas race, there were more people who voted in the Democratic primary than in the Republican primary,” said Dionne.

“Two hundred thousand more,” Siegel added.

“Yeah. And then, in this runoff, the total turnout was 1.4 million. Donald Trump got 6.4 million votes in Texas in 2024. This is a dispirited party, and the part that’s dispirited is the non-MAGA part, and I think this is a real problem going forward for the Republicans,” said Dionne.

Charen said controversial MAGA Texas senatorial candidate Paxton’s identical performance in the initial primary round and then in the follow-up runoff suggested MAGA people will stick with Paxton “no matter what.” But the primary also reveals that Republican candidates will be unable to wash off the stink of President Donald Trump’s unpopularity with less MAGA general election voters.

“In this party, Trump has managed to spray his musk over every single candidate, so that they cannot escape it,” said Charen.

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