Transcript of Congressional Republicans Try a New Approach: Telling Trump No New

The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen.

The way the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections.

I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling.

I go to games always.

Doing the mini, doing the Wordle.

I loved how much content it exposed me to, things that I never would have thought to turn to a news app for.

This app is essential.

The New York Times app. All of the Times, all in one place. Download it now at nytimes.com/app.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In ways big and small, the Republican-controlled Congress has begun rebelling against President Trump as never before on everything from the war in Iran to his plan to use taxpayer money to pay his allies. Today, Congressional Editor Julie Davis on whether the uprising is a preview of a new dynamic in Washington or a temporary show of independence that will vanish just as quickly as it arrived. It's Monday, June 8th.

Julie, it's wonderful to see you.

Great to see you, Michael.

Thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

I would say, Julie, I don't think you're going to contest this, that from the first moment of Trump's second term, the question on kind of everyone's mind was whether the manner in which the president had consolidated his power had basically rendered this Congress, this Republican Congress, irrelevant, right? I mean, it very much looked like a co-equal branch of government was choosing subservience very willingly. And we started to ask the question, is Congress over? And the answer over the past 10 days or so seemed to change, and now it feels more like a no, it's not over.

Yeah, I mean, I think in the first months of President Trump's second term, we were actually surprised on the Hill to see the degree to which Republicans were just deferring to him on everything, not just refusing to challenge him on things, but actively kind of giving back their power on some pretty key things, on spending, on trade and tariffs, on foreign policy, things that you typically see Congress jealously guarding as its own prerogatives. Finding every possible way to give it over to the White House and really even just avoiding voting on things altogether. Right.

It was literally like a kid in the playground saying, "Take this toy, take this toy, take this shovel, take this truck." Right.

That was really all we were seeing from Republicans when it came to President Trump. But in the last few weeks, we have seen some pretty rare and unusual resistance coming from Republicans. They're refusing to act on legislation that's a big priority for him, refusing to move on the timelines that he's set out for them. They're stripping things from legislation and forcing the administration to drop proposals that they don't like. And in the case of the war in Iran, they're actually using their power to push back on President Trump.

They're basically rebelling.

They're rebelling. To go back to your playground metaphor, Michael, it's a little bit like a group of kids who have obeyed their daddy for many, many months on pretty much everything and are finally just saying, "No, Daddy, we're not gonna do this for you." Mm-hmm.

That's quite a vivid completion of the metaphor. So take us behind the scenes of this rebellion, if that's what we're gonna be calling it, and we'll get to how durable it is and how far it may or may not go. But let's just understand it to the extent that it has been unfolding. On the surface, a lot of it seemed to revolve around the Weaponization Fund, the president's nearly $2 billion effort to compensate people he claims are victims of overzealous government prosecution. But my sense is that That's not quite the full story.

Yeah, it actually started long before the Trump administration announced that they were creating that fund. This has been percolating for many weeks, and it's really, I think, a matter of Republicans sort of slowly and then very quickly waking up to the reality that a lot of what President Trump is doing is actually counter to their own political interests. Let's remember that we are just months away from the midterm elections, and Trump is intervening in Republican primaries against some pretty popular members of their caucus who are incumbents who are fighting for their political lives.

Mm-hmm.

He intervenes in Louisiana, endorses a Republican congresswoman who's running against Bill Cassidy, the senator who's the head of the Health Committee.

Right.

Who has spent years in trying to ingratiate himself with Trump after having voted to convict him at his impeachment trial after January 6th. But Trump ultimately decided he wanted to take him out. And did. And he did. And he did. But the second Senate primary where President Trump intervened, and I think the more stinging one that made Republicans a lot angrier, It was in Texas where Senator John Cornyn had been facing a challenge from Ken Paxton, the attorney general. They were in a runoff. It was going to be a competitive one. President Trump had stayed neutral, and days before the primary, he weighs in and endorses Ken Paxton. And that news that the president was going to do that just hit Republicans on the Hill like a bomb. They were completely irate, in part because Cornyn was seen as the much stronger candidate who would be able to win that seat without having to spend a lot of money, without having to really worry about it, because there are obviously a lot of other seats that they need to be worrying about defending in the midterm year. So that just soured the mood among Republicans who are sort of looking around, seeing that President Trump's agenda is getting less and less popular with voters, seeing that he's doing things really they feel like are for himself.

And not for the good of the party. You know, Republicans are fighting to hold on to majorities in both chambers, and they have an uphill battle. And there started to be a real feeling like he was making it harder for them.

Mm-hmm.

And I should say that both of these senators are very popular with their Republican colleagues. They're seen as effective. They're seen as experienced, and they know how to do their jobs. And the very same day that Trump came out and endorsed Paxton against Cornyn, In the weekly party lunch, Bill Cassidy, returning for the first time since being defeated in his primary, got a standing ovation from Republicans.

It was kind of like a moment where they sort of were saying, "You're our guy, even if you're not President Trump's." Clearly, what's starting to dawn on these Republicans is that Trump is making the midterms about him, making it about revenge, not at all what's best for a party trying to keep control of Congress. And on top of all this, what Trump is clearly doing in the eyes of these Republicans is rewarding their subservience. I mean, Cornyn votes with Trump 90-something percent of the time. Same with Cassidy. Rewarding that with them being punished and forced out of office. So why should they keep being subservient starts to basically be the question.

Right. That is the question. And this is the context in which the administration announces without any advance word to any Republican on Capitol Hill that they will be forming this anti-weaponization fund of $1.776 billion to, the administration says, compensate people who have been victimized by the federal government. Mm-hmm. The clear implication that this is for people loyal to President Trump, including potentially the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, who he feels have been wronged by the government and unfairly targeted. And so he would like to use federal money to pay these people. And this just sort of, in the context of all of this tension that Republicans are feeling toward the president and how he's making his decisions, just hits them like a ton of bricks.

My first reaction was, this doesn't pass the smell test. This might be one area where you might find a lot of bipartisan questioning of whether or not this is a good idea.

This is another instance of him going around Congress to use money in the way that he sees fit.

There are a lot of questions that the administration is going to have to answer. These people don't deserve restitution. Many of them deserve to be in prison. I mean, this is just stupid on stilts.

And let's not forget, Republicans worked to acquit him at his impeachment trial. They have been loyal to him for years since January 6th, but they were all in the Capitol on January 6th when people assaulted the building and they were all running for their lives. So they're all— it's sort of dawning on them both personally and frankly politically, they're going to have to defend this in front of voters at a time when they are— many of them are running for reelection. This is really not a good look and this is not something that they want to have to stand behind.

It's as if somebody sued themselves, agreed upon a settlement with themselves, and that's going to be funded by the rest of us. I can tell you the voter doesn't like that, or if they like it, maybe they're in on it.

And this is not just an academic exercise for them because what they also realize is that President Trump has set them one of his famous deadlines, a June 1st deadline for them to deliver him the huge $70 billion immigration enforcement bill that he's been asking for for months. And they are trying to move on to that bill, and they start to realize, because they have so many concerns about this fund, and there's so much sentiment among Republicans to try to do something to shut this idea down, that they're probably not gonna be able to get the votes to move forward with the immigration bill.

Mm-hmm.

Unless they do something to either get President Trump to reverse himself on the fund or actually affirmatively write some legislation to block him from doing it.

So at the same time that the president is putting forth this toxic idea of a weaponization fund that might give money to January 6th rioters, he's saying to these Senate Republicans, pass this gargantuan spending bill I want, even though I'm putting you in a tough position all around.

Right. And Republicans initially are trying to figure out if there's a way they can do this. Todd Blanch, the acting attorney general, comes to the Hill to try to assuage their concerns about the fund. He meets with them behind closed doors.

What do you want to hear from Todd Blanch about the payout pot for punks? Uh, not a lot.

Look, and it is just a complete blowup.

It's one of the roughest meetings I've seen in my entire time in the Senate. "Fiery" does not begin to cut it.

It very quickly becomes clear that this is a complete nonstarter for Republicans. They call off their vote on this bill. They leave for Memorial Day weekend and say, "The way things stand now, we just—

we can't move forward." And calling off a vote sounds to the lay ear like a subtle, act of recalcitrance. But in the moment, it felt very much like a declaration of independence. We are canceling a vote to put $70 billion into immigration enforcement for the president, his signature agenda, right?

And remember that when the president sets them a deadline or asks them to do something, in the past Republicans have always just snapped right to and done it. So the fact that they're willing and really feel like they have to go home and not do this. It does feel like a real pivot point. We have not seen them push back on the president or his legislative agenda in this way before.

So any questions, please?

And a couple hours later in the Oval Office, President Trump is making an appearance, and reporters actually ask him, like, are you losing control of the Senate? Senate Republicans, are you losing your hold on the Senate?

I don't know. I really don't know. I can tell you I only do what's right.

And Trump says, well, I'm not really sure, I don't know. But all around him, there is mounting evidence that he is really not keeping Republicans in line on a variety of his priorities. It's right around this time that Republicans decide to drop the billion dollars that they had put in their bill for his ballroom project. We all know how much he cherishes that project. He talks about it all the time. While Republicans wish that he would talk about the economy. He's always talking about the ballroom project. Right. They drop that. It's a not-so-subtle brush-off to him.

Right. They basically say, despite your desire that we slip it quietly into a bill, we're actually going to take it out.

Right. They don't want to have to defend it. They don't want to have to vote for it. And they really are not letting up on this payout fund. They make it very clear that this thing has to die. If they're going to be able to move forward with the immigration bill.

And it's sort of by coincidence around this moment, as I recall, that a court rules that the White House can't do anything when it comes to this weaponization fund, which kind of assists these congressional Republicans in their opposition.

Right. It gives them a bit of support for their position that the administration just has to abandon this, although the court order is only temporary. So it also strengthens their resolve to really be like, something needs to be done about this to once and for all get it off the table. And in fact, within a couple of days, the administration does back down on the fund. The Justice Department puts out word that they're not going to challenge this court ruling. And in this case, it was especially notable because even after the White House said they were going to abide by this court order, which they clearly did not agree with, Republicans went a step further and said, we don't trust you. We don't trust the word of the White House. We don't trust the Justice The Justice Department saying they're going to abide by this. We want an on-the-record disavowal of this thing and to be assured that it will never return. And that is just not something we have seen Republicans do. They, you know, have been very deferential and given President Trump a lot of latitude and a lot of benefit of the doubt.

And that benefit of the doubt is just gone at this point. And then Todd Blanch goes back to Capitol Hill and testifies under oath that we are not moving forward with this fund, period.

Right. I think it's fair to say if you're evaluating the strength of this Republican rebellion at its peak over the past couple of weeks, this is the high watermark of it. When congressional Republicans, using the leverage they have over something that the president wants, which is this money for the immigration crackdown, kill off this weaponization fund, right?

This is Republicans doing what Democrats have been saying for more than a year they needed to do, which is use their power, use their leverage to push back on the president at a moment of, you know, pretty potent anger among Republicans about some of the things the president has done.

And of course, that anger and this rebellion we're talking about, it doesn't end with the weaponization fund because another big target emerges around this same time, and that is the president's war in Iran. And we'll talk about that right after the break. We'll be right back.

I'm David Sanger. I cover the White House and national security at The New York Times. And I try to explain what decisions made in Washington mean for you wherever you live. This is why the Times sends me to the Oval Office when the president is making a major decision or has me ride along on Air Force One on critical trips. And I talk to foreign leaders, exploring why they're so often at odds with the United States. We live in a world of misinformation and disinformation. It's never been more important to have reliable sources of on-the-ground reporting. If you want firsthand reporting on how US policy affects the world, consider subscribing to The New York Times.

So, Julia, explain how this Republican pushback in Congress that we most vividly saw against the weaponization fund starts to play out with a war in Iran?

So for months now, since President Trump started bombing Iran in late February, Democrats have been forcing these war powers votes on the House and Senate floors, which are essentially resolutions that say the president has to come to Congress for authorization if he wants to continue the war. And they're important not so much because anyone really thinks that they're going to be enacted into law. Obviously, President Trump has said these are unconstitutional. He'd veto any resolution like this that ever reached his desk. But Democrats and some Republicans who are growing increasingly uneasy with how this is dragging on see it as a way of really registering Congress's skepticism about this and really trying to reassert a congressional role in matters of war, which again is one of these things that Republicans have for months just ceded to the president and not attempted to involve themselves in. And every time one of these comes up, The Republican leadership argues this is gonna tie the president's hands. This is going to undermine his ability to negotiate. We can't be doing this right now. Congress just needs to step back. So Republicans keep voting against it with a few defections, but not enough to actually let this pass until this sort of rebellion starts to bubble up within the party about a range of issues.

And all of a sudden, a few days after Bill Cassidy loses his primary, there's yet another war powers vote in the Senate. We are following some breaking news in Washington where the U.S. Senate just passed legislation. And guess who switches his vote and votes with Democrats to insist that Trump come to Congress for authorization?

Mr. Cassidy. Mr. Cassidy.

Aye. Bill Cassidy.

I actually support the goals that the president initially laid out. Now, it's going to be 2 weeks. It's obviously going longer than 2 weeks. So just tell the American people that's where I am on it.

What does And that is enough to put the resolution over the top, and the Senate now has to take it up and has to eventually vote on it. So it's just another indication that dissent is growing about this conflict that a lot of Democrats and certainly many Republicans see as a political liability for them. And they don't feel like the White House or the president has leveled with them on what the goals are, what the endgame is. And all of a sudden, some of these reservations, which we've heard Republicans kind of allude to gently for many months, are manifesting themselves in a vote, which is a pretty remarkable moment. And then before too long—

Members will record their votes by electronic device. Members, this is a 5-minute vote.

A war powers resolution comes up in the House, which is a much more conservative body where the leaders have a much tighter rein on their people, but still—

The ayes are 215 and the nays are 208. The concurrent resolution is adopted.

Enough Republicans defect and join Democrats to pass the resolution.

Congress alone declares war. That's something that we have to be, you know, certainly protective of.

And essentially say Trump has to withdraw forces or come to Congress for authorization.

We have to follow the law. There's a law on the books, the War Powers Act of '73, so you can't violate the law. That's not an option.

And the key crossover votes came from Republicans who are in competitive districts.

There are a variety of considerations that we have to take into account, but I definitely feel what people are experiencing back home. You know, I go back home to my district every single week. You know, I fill up my gas tank too. I have 4 kids.

They're concerned about the war. It's gone on too long. It's costing too much. They want to see an endgame.

Interesting. So swing district Republicans are crossing over, voting with Democrats to register their disapproval of the war because they worry that the war, the resulting high gas prices, are going to cost them reelection. This goes back to what you were saying earlier, that at the heart of this Republican rebellion is this very strong sense that the president is not looking out for the best interests of the Republican Party, right?

This is a president who has said in recent weeks that he doesn't care about the financial impact on Americans when he's thinking about the war. He doesn't care about the midterms. And Republicans are starting to look around and say, like, well, where does that leave us? And by this point, we're starting to see some interesting coalitions form here to really be the spine of this pushback against Trump. You have swing district Republicans like Senator Susan Collins was among the senators who voted for the war powers resolution in the Senate. Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Barrett of Michigan were the ones in the House.

Purple state lawmakers, right?

But you also have this other faction, you know, who are starting to get the nickname of the YOLO caucus that have been targeted by the president. They've been ousted and are lame ducks, and they don't have a reason anymore to be unbendingly loyal to Donald Trump. Bill Cassidy already lost his reelection. John Cornyn lost his reelection. Tom Massie was another Republican who voted for the War Powers Act in the House, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger just a few weeks ago. So they're sort of conspiring with these people who have everything to lose politically. They have nothing to lose politically, but the result is the same, that they are willing to push back on a president who is not used to being resisted.

Right. And of course, the thing to note about the so-called YOLO coalition is they might not have anything left to lose, but they're not gonna be in their jobs much longer. They can fight the president until their term is up at the end of the year, and then inevitably they're being replaced by people who are very loyal to the president, potentially someone like Ken Paxton if he wins the general election. And therefore the threat that they pose to the president is inherently temporary, we're saying.

Absolutely. And it's not clear how far any of them are willing to go with this, right? We saw Senator Cassidy vote for the War Powers Act. We didn't see John Cornyn cross party lines on that. He's a very loyal Republican, and we have yet to see him really manifest his, you know, grievance, if he feels any, toward the president in a vote. But the fact remains that their political incentive to do whatever the president wants them to do has vastly diminished.

Well, I think, Julie, that gets at the ultimate question that we have to ask here, which is how durable and potent is this resistance likely to be in the long term? Obviously, a unique set of circumstances played out here all at once, where the president ousted popular members of the Republican Party from their jobs. That made folks really angry. Then he dropped this idea of the weaponization fund into everyone's laps. That made them angry. That doesn't happen every day. And how likely are these congressional Republicans over time to snap back into this more subservient role that Trump has conditioned them to take?

Right. It's, it's a great question. It's the question to ask, and it's instructive to look at what happened Thursday and Friday, where Republicans finally were able to pass their immigration bill. And what we see is that given the opportunity by Democrats to go a step further and actually put it in writing, in law, that there can never be President Trump's compensation fund for his political allies, Republicans figure out a way to block that. Not to vote for that. And that allows them to keep this immigration bill, this top priority of President Trump, on track. But even as they're handing him this big victory, there were all these signs still of how Republicans were sort of parting ways with and finding ways to distance themselves from Trump. Hmm. Before the immigration bill passed, there was this long series of votes overnight and into Friday morning. They call it a votE-A-Rama. Where there were a series of amendments offered to the bill, and there were some Republican votes for those proposals, including several votes on the fund and a proposal to say that Trump could never use any federal money for his ballroom. The same was true on a Democratic proposal to try to block him from naming Bill Pulte, the housing director, as the director of national intelligence, another thing that had really enraged a lot of Republicans.

None of these things ultimately were able to succeed and be added to the bill. But the fact that Republicans were willing to vote the way they did showed that there is at least some mood in their ranks, which hasn't really existed before, to resist what the president is demanding of them. Right. And I think that's kind of where we're seeing them land. They're not going to be willing to derail their own party's agenda. In the service of defying Trump, right? They still want to keep their immigration bill and their message to voters on track because in the end, what this really is about is them trying to do what they think is best for themselves and the party. And their agendas overlap with his in many ways, in most ways. But where there is some daylight, and the president keeps on creating this daylight, closer and closer we get to November, they're gonna push back and rebel. And that marks a new chapter in the story of this president and the Republican Congress.

Well, Julie, thank you very much as always. Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Michael. Same here.

In an interview on Sunday with NBC's Meet the Press, President Trump acknowledged the bipartisan opposition that killed his so-called weaponization fund.

It's been blocked by the courts, met with opposition from Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

And Democrats— excuse me, mostly Democrats, some Democrats and some Republicans, very few Republicans.

Just—

but said he still supported the idea in theory.

Well, it's— look, it was up to me, I'd pay them the kind money that they deserve. People have been destroyed. Lives have been destroyed.

During the interview, Trump also sought to downplay the war in Iran and the growing doubts that surround it.

I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It's not a big war for us. It's not. We're the most powerful.

The latest version of the war powers resolution against the war, already passed in the House, now heads to the Senate. Under congressional rules, the Senate must either pass or reject the resolution in the next few weeks.

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Sunday, Iran fired ballistic missiles toward Israel, the first time Iran has done so since a ceasefire began in early April. Sunday's attack was in response to a deadly Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that targeted Hezbollah, a militant group backed by Iran. Israel said it intercepted all the Iranian missiles, and a few hours later,, it fired back at Iran. The back and forth threatens to escalate a conflict that has been largely contained and further complicates peace talks between the United States and Iran that have sputtered for weeks. Today's episode was produced by Chris Bendereff, Mary Wilson, Anna Foley, and Olivia Natt. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Rob Zipko, and contains music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Alicia Baitoub, and Marian Lozano. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

A lot of skincare products promise they'll make you look younger, but retinol products are among the very few that can actually deliver.

One tester is— if you look at his skin wrong, it will react. And he did not have any reactivity. He only saw benefits.

I'm Christine Seer-Clissett, one of the hosts of The Wirecutter Show, and our latest episode is all about retinol products and what they can do for your skin. Just look for The Wirecutter Show wherever you listen.