The one Nevadan who more than any other could help bring Trump to heel — if he wanted to
The one Nevadan who is in the best position to help stop Donald Trump from sabotaging the global economy and shattering the financial stability of Nevada households is Nevada’s only Republican in the Republican-controlled Congress, Rep. Mark Amodei.
Politico reported Friday that Amodei’s fellow House Republican, Don Bacon of Nebraska, plans to introduce a House version of a bipartisan-backed Senate bill empowering Congress to cancel tariffs ordered by a president.
The Senate version of the bill was announced Thursday by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, and four more Senate Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors so far.
Congress reining in Trump on tariffs (and, for a change, protecting and preserving the legislative branch’s role in the U.S. government) is a tremendously tall order. Even if Congress passed it, Trump would veto it, and then a whole lot more Republicans would have to find the spine to stand up to Trump and help form the two-thirds majorities in both houses needed to override a veto.
Yes, that many Republicans defying Trump seems unthinkable.
But then, just less than a week ago, the notion that the stock market would see one of its worst weeks ever just because of the crackpot obsessions of one 78-year-old man seemed unthinkable too.
When the markets plummeted upon opening Thursday, Bacon was already reportedly mulling some sort of House action to rein in Trump on tariffs. I emailed Amodei’s office asking if he had been in conversations with other House members about taking action to reassert congressional authority over tariff policy and whether Amodei agreed (as Bacon had put it) that “Congress should take back its tariff authorities.”
In a statement provided by his office Friday, Amodei ignored the question. Instead, he tossed around some Trump talking points and brushed off “Wall Street wigging out.”
“We’ll be closely monitoring key indicators of economic stability,” Amodei added, “such as job reports, inflation, and consumer spending, but nobody said this was going to be instant gratification, and as the President said, ‘We’re dealing with a very sick patient.’ Under Biden, we saw the largest trade deficit in U.S. history, and the status quo is simply not sustainable. We need significant changes to steer our country toward self-reliance.”
A couple things:
First, really, Amodei? “Nobody said this was going to be instant gratification”? Fine, let’s give Amodei the benefit of the doubt and assume he was talking about “instant gratification” as a result of Trump’s tariffs. But let’s also not forget that while campaigning Trump promised that “Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” as well as “Prices will come down. You just watch: They’ll come down, and they’ll come down fast.” Trump has been promising nothing but instant economic gratification for the last, oh, three years. And so far he’s delivered exactly the opposite of that.
Second, when Amodei says 2024’s trade deficit is the largest ever, he’s presumably referring to a dollar amount, which is the dumbed-down way of looking at it. Each and every year countless measurements are the largest in history, like the world’s population, for instance, or, say, the sum total of inane hyperbole spewed by Republican members of Congress. Rather than a dollar amount, a far more concrete and informative assessment of the trade deficit is determined by measuring it as a percentage of GDP. In 2024 the trade deficit was 3.1% of GDP, while in 2006 it was more than 5%. But thanks for bringing it up, congressman.
Meanwhile, to reiterate, Amodei failed to answer the question he was asked, which essentially boils down to whether he too, like at least a half dozen of his fellow Republicans in Congress (Bacon and five senators), is ready to take the U.S. Constitution seriously and reestablish the legislative branch of the United States government as, you know, a going concern.
Courts are slow, and the Supreme Court is stuffed with Trumpers. Congressional Democrats are sidelined (and many of them, including Nevada ones, have demonstrated a willingness to pretend everything will be fine). And Republicans have majorities in Congress, though to clarify, they don’t really control it; they’ve surrendered their control to Trump.
But assuming Trump can be reined in, a number of congressional Republicans are going to have to participate in the reining.
Some of the damage Trump has already inflicted on the economy, the rule of law, national security, international cooperation, science, human rights, the First Amendment, the system of checks and balances that underly the Constitution, democracy, and the practical workings of the federal government is so severe that fixing what he has broken will take years, assuming it’s fixable.
It’s tempting to write off Amodei, in the expectation that he’ll just continue to pretend this is all normal while supplying rote apologies for Trump laced with aw shucks quips and mealy-mouthed let’s-wait-and-sees.
But over the years Amodei has demonstrated on occasion there might be more to him than that. Since he’s the state’s only Republican in Congress, Nevada better hope there is.
A version of this column was originally published in the Daily Current newsletter, which is free and which you can subscribe to here.
Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: info@nevadacurrent.com.
