Lately, Donald Trump isn’t getting everything he wants on Capitol Hill, where many Republican lawmakers are getting nervous about holding on to their majorities in the coming midterm elections. More are willing to publicly buck unpopular parts of the president’s agenda — and it’s not just a small group of critics.
In recent weeks, Republicans have rebelled against Trump’s demand to fund the construction of a White House ballroom, a Department of Justice compensation fund for people it says were wronged by the government and Trump’s choice of Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a stalwart ally with no intelligence experience, to oversee the nation’s intelligence agencies. As the war with Iran continues, both legislative chambers voted to rebuke the president’s strategy in what appears to have turned into another quagmire in the Middle East.
“We don’t want to oppose the president just for the sake of opposing the president, but unlike the president, we have a third of our members up for reelection this year,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), who is retiring, said the threats to the GOP’s control of congressional majorities in an interview with NOTUS. “I just think more members, you know, the closer you get to the election, the more real these threats become, and the more realistic people get.”