Some Republicans are accusing their own party’s leadership of “rolling over” to clear the path for Donald Trump’s demands, as internal frustration bubbles up over how the House is being run.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a frequent Trump critic, told The Independent he’s been struck by how rigidly some Republicans are now falling in line. Massie argued that certain bills wouldn’t have reached the House floor without direct pressure from the president — and said he expected more resistance when Trump drifted from what he promised.
“I thought I’d have some other people occasionally when he deviated from his promises,” Massie said. “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.”
Massie pointed to Rules Committee members Chip Roy and Ralph Norman as examples of what he views as a broader collapse of the party’s internal checks.
“I’m kind of disappointed with what’s going on there,” he said.
Massie also suggested the committee has stopped acting as a lever for conservative priorities, despite earlier expectations that a small bloc would drive tougher outcomes.
“There’s three conservatives who were supposed to make things happen, and they seem to have given up on that effort, and the rules committee, that’s totally gone,” he said.
The Rules Committee is currently led by Virginia Foxx, after previously being chaired by Tom Cole and Michael Burgess.
The discontent comes as economist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman argued that Trump’s hold over Congress could be broken by a relatively small number of Republican defections. In a recent piece, Krugman wrote that many Republicans may be privately alarmed by Trump’s behavior, but continue to support him anyway.
“What can we say about the cowardly Republicans in Congress, who are still sustaining Trump even though many of them – perhaps most of them – are privately appalled by his behavior?” he wrote.
Krugman said it would take “just eight” lawmakers — “four Republican senators and four Republican House members” — to flip control by joining Democrats, cutting into Trump’s influence.
“It would take just eight of these people — four Republican senators and four Republican House members — to switch sides and caucus with the Democrats to end GOP control of Congress and eliminate much of Trump’s power,” he wrote.
But he argued the political cost of confronting Trump keeps most Republicans in line.
“Taking such a step would mean risking Trump’s wrath by standing up and acting like patriots, rather than knuckling down and averting their eyes as Trump descends into madness,” Krugman wrote.
