Vulnerable Republicans increasingly willing to defy Trump’s agenda as midterms approach

By Sarah Ferris, Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump remains the clear leader of the Republican party. Yet his grip is weakening among Republicans on Capitol Hill who’ve grown frustrated by what they view as increasingly brazen decisions in his second term.

Republicans are still on track to muscle through a top party priority next week, delivering $70 billion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection funding. But even that measure had been at serious risk of collapse in recent weeks after Republicans revolted over Trump’s insistence for a $1.8 billion settlement fund that critics say is intended to reward his political supporters.

While Senate GOP leaders successfully quashed much of that dissent, the days of bitter wrangling exposed cracks in Trump’s base of support on Capitol Hill. There is now a growing chorus of Republicans — and not just the usual defectors — willing to defy him as they seek to rein in his pursuit of his agenda, ranging from projects like the White House ballroom and exacting political retribution on his enemies to his handling of the Iran war and other foreign policy issues. The trend is only expected to accelerate as the November elections approach, with contentious fights ahead like Trump’s push to confirm his controversial expected pick to lead the Department of Justice.

Though GOP lawmakers remain largely supportive of the White House’s broader agenda, they have privately complained that Trump and his spate of unpopular decision-making – including endorsing against incumbent lawmakers in GOP primaries – have become a chief obstacle to accomplishing much of his otherwise-appealing policy goals, people familiar with the private discussions said.

“I don’t understand the calculus of letting the president just go out on this warpath,” one of those people said of Trump’s retribution campaign, which grew more unsettling for Republicans with his appointment of MAGA loyalist Bill Pulte to the top intelligence job. “That’s where the resentment is. People just want their gas prices to go down.”

Trump’s recent moves — from Pulte to the ballroom to the $1.8 billion fund — have increasingly grated on Senate Republicans, who now worry that the president’s falling approval ratings could cost them control of the chamber, an outcome few saw as a possibility as recently as six months ago. (Some privately blame Trump directly for the risk to the Senate majority, after his recent decision to meddle in a high-stakes Texas GOP primary in favor of a baggage-laden candidate.)

“There’s this realization … if no one’s looking out for me, I have to look out for myself,” one senior GOP aide said, describing vulnerable lawmakers’ calculation to defy Trump on the floor this week. Hill Republicans are increasingly frustrated, this person said, that Trump appears to be “recklessly” undermining their own party’s message to everyday Americans.

More than a dozen Senate Republicans took symbolic votes to register their discontent with Trump, opposing his push for the settlement fund, his pricey East Wing ballroom, installing Pulte to lead US intel operations, strict voter ID laws and more. Those votes came during a marathon session to consider amendments to the $70 billion immigration bill.

And Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against that full package of immigration funding — something she would normally support — in part because she said it allowed the Trump administration too much power over where the money would go, with diminished oversight from Congress.

Across the Capitol, House Republicans delivered critical messages of their own. For the first time since the Iran war began in February, the House voted to direct Trump to pull out of the conflict, with a small bloc of GOP lawmakers in support. A day later, nearly 20 Republicans voted to rebuke Trump’s handling of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, bucking party leaders to support a Democratic sanctions package.

Notably, it wasn’t just the usual GOP centrists who defied Trump with their votes this week. The list includes a handful of senators facing competitive elections this November. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Jon Husted of Ohio voted to kill the settlement fund, and Ashley Moody of Florida voted to bar taxpayer-funded settlements to January 6, 2021, rioters convicted of assaulting police officers. Another respected senior GOP senator, Jerry Moran of Kansas, voted to prohibit funding for Trump’s ballroom. (Then there’s the group of so-called “YOLO” senators whose reelection bids have been tanked by Trump personally, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — who have all become more willing to push back on Trump’s priorities.)

The House has also seen notable cracks. One of the House GOP’s most endangered incumbents, Rep. Tom Barrett, just voted to limit Trump’s Iran war powers. Several current and former GOP chairmen, including Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York, Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, Michael McCaul of Texas and Mike Turner of Ohio, all defied Trump on his handling of Moscow over the Ukraine war.

“I think that people are frustrated, certainly,” Barrett told CNN when asked about the pain his constituents felt stemming from the Iran war.

“I definitely feel what people are experiencing back home,” he added. “I fill up my gas tank too. I have four kids, we’re taking them to practice, we’re taking them to school, we’re driving throughout my district. I see it as well.”

Many Republican lawmakers in competitive seats like Barrett’s have spent weeks urging their leadership to pivot to legislation that can help back home. GOP aides have continually complained that instead of pushing bills to lower costs or touting previous legislative accomplishments, the White House is focused on conflicts abroad or pet projects at home.

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Trump “is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in the House and Senate.”

“While the media and Democrats attempt to sow nonexistent divisions, we look forward to continuing this close relationship to continue fulfilling President Trump’s agenda that Americans elected him to enact — especially last night’s Senate vote to fund ICE and CBP,” she said.

Trump, for his part, has shown no signs of changing his approach, reacting to the rebukes on Capitol Hill with a mixture of fury and dismissal. “Sen. Tillis is a loser,” he said Friday, after Tillis threatened to oppose his likely next nominee for attorney general.

Trump has expressed continued confidence in his political instincts, advisers said, emboldened by a string of recent successes in Republican primary races and the reality that the GOP remains aligned behind his major legislative goals.

“Trump has gotten further with narrower margins than any president in modern times,” said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who remains close to the White House. “The fact that he also does some things that you wouldn’t automatically recommend is just almost beside the point. You’ve got a guy who is 80% or 90% historically amazing and 10% a little bit hard to understand.”

Still, on Capitol Hill and within parts of the administration, many Republicans have instead taken to planning around Trump rather than with him, aides on both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. said, resigned to the fact that the president is unwilling to set aside his own priorities in favor of devoting himself completely to the GOP’s midterm needs.

“Nobody knows what to do,” said one White House official, who described the administration’s priorities as driven primarily by whatever happens to catch Trump’s attention.

Republican lawmakers who long aired their concerns privately to senior aides in hopes of shaping Trump’s behavior have more recently begun voicing them publicly as well. A wave of Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader John Thune, suggested earlier this week that Pulte would face withering scrutiny if nominated for the top intel job. And a handful of them swiftly rejected a Trump-backed push to insert a divisive voter ID provision into Republicans’ immigration bill.

But five months out from Election Day, there is little expectation that Trump will suddenly shift his approach — a reality likely to force vulnerable Republicans to continue to distance themselves from his most unpopular impulses.

“They see the realities,” the person familiar with the private discussions said of Trump’s top aides. “But the president is his own comms director, legislative director, chief of staff, etc.”

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CNN’s Manu Raju and Alison Main contributed to this report.