Last week, two Republican senators — Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri— changed their votes on a War Powers Act resolution seeking to restrict President Donald Trump from conducting further military actions in Venezuela.
This came after Trump had unloaded on the five Republicans who joined Democrats, saying they “should never be elected to office again.”
It was just the latest example of how Republicans in Congress rolled over to Trump and how even Trump’s strongest allies like Hawley, who once pumped his fist and led the charge to object to the 2020 presidential election results, are not safe from the president’s wrath.
When Trump returned to the White House last year, may people thought he would have a more difficult time passing legislation than he did the first time. While Republicans flipped the Senate by winning four seats to give them a 53-seat majority, that would not be enough to overcome the 60-vote threshold for the filibuster.
In the more cantankerous House of Representatives, Republicans would have only 220 seats, two more than the requisite 218 votes to get a majority. And infighting plagued the previous Congress to the point that a band of conservatives ejected Kevin McCarthy as speaker and elevated the relatively unknown archconservative backbencher Mike Johnson to replace him.
But in his first year in office, Trump bulldozed through previously held norms as Republicans in Congress acquiesced to the president at almost every turn.
“I thought I'd have some other people occasionally when he deviated from his promises,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the rare Republican critics of Trump, told The Independent. “I mean, my colleagues here are increasingly being forced to choose between President Trump and President Trump's promises, and so far, they've chose President Trump but not his promises.”
After initially pulling Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be attorney general amid scandalous allegations, almost all of Trump’s major Cabinet nominees passed through the Senate. Even seeming holdout Joni Ernst, an Army Reserve veteran, voted to make Pete Hegseth — who had previously said women should not serve in combat — Defense Secretary.
Bill Cassidy, a gastroentrologist who had voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6, meanwhile voted to make anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. secretary of Health and Human Services.
It’s also a break from Trump’s first tenure. Back then, a handful of Republicans, from Mitt Romney to Justin Amash to Liz Cheney, would vote to impeach or convict him. The late John McCain’s thumbs-down Senate vote killed his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Not so much this time. Despite her objections to the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act, Sen. Lisa Murkowski would vote to pass it on the hopes that the House would tweak it. When it came to the House, the Freedom Caucus — frequently a thorn in the side of Republican leadership — complied.
At one point, as the vote for the rule to begin debate on the legislation began, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C) told reporters that the Freedom Caucus had leverage.
“The reason we have credibility, they know we'll vote 'no,'” Norman said. Norman and the rest of the Freedom Caucus would roll over and vote “yes” for the rule and the final passage of the bill.
Massie criticized the way conservatives on the Rules Committee, which authorizes which bills go to the floor, like Norman and Chip Roy (R-Texas) rolled over for Trump.
“I'm kind of disappointed with what's going on there,” he said. “There's three conservatives who were supposed to make things happen, and they've seemed to given up on that effort and the rules committee that's totally gone.”
And one of the few who opposed the One Big, Beautiful Bill, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced he would run for re-election in 2026. At the same time, Tillis said he did not think Congress had surrendered its power and compared it to how Democrats acted when Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s presidency.
“I mean, the reason why I really push back on that is, tell me when, in the Biden administration, Democrats push back good point on their agenda,” he told The Independent in December. “If anything, Republicans are proven to be more independent and pushing back than anything I saw in the four years that Biden was here, the two years that Obama was here.”
Indeed, despite Tillis butting heads earlier this month with Trump on invading Greenland, he’s largely voted in line with the president, voting to confirm Hegseth and shepherding the confirmation of Kash Patel to become the director of the FBI.
But that would not be the last time that Trump imposed his will on Congress.
In September, Democrats planned to oppose a continuing resolution to keep the government open if Republicans did not extend expanded tax credits for the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplace. In response, Johnson kept the House closed, which infuriated some members.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from California, loudly criticized Johnson for the fact that the speaker also blocked efforts to vote on the president’s tariffs.
“The speaker canceled session for six straight weeks, which has caused us to be far behind on a lot of issues, including addressing this health care issue,” he told The Independent. “The House has ceded some of its legislative authority on issues like tariffs.”
In response, many members of Congress resorted to a lesser-known procedure known as discharge petitions wherein a member can force a vote on any legislation as long as they receive 218 signatures.
Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) proposed one in response to Johnson and Trump stonewalling files related to Jeffrey Epstein. But Johnson kept the House closed and refused to swear in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) when she won a special election.
And in the same token, when then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a major supporter of Trump’s, joined the effort, Trump lashed out at her, prompting her ultimate resignation.
“It's always exponentially easier when you have at least one person with you,” Massie told The Independent.
And a few weeks after the passage of the Epstein legislation, Trump vetoed legislation supported by Rep. Lauren Boebert that passed unanimously for clean drinking water rights for tribal areas. When it came back to Congress, Republicans refused to override the veto.
Earlier this month, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries figured out a way to outfox Johnson by getting enough Republicans to join them to extend the tax credits for three more years. That passed the House.
But the Senate left last week for recess. And no deal is in sight.
Trump’s first year thrilled allies and shocked critics. What’s next?
Is JD Vance ready to take over the MAGA mantle from Donald Trump?
White House endures a year of gold leaf and wrecking balls at hand of Trump
One year in, Trump 2.0 has made reality optional
Mapped: Every country Trump has attacked or threatened in his tumultuous second term
What is the UK’s Chagos Islands deal and why has Trump labelled it ‘great stupidity’?
