President Donald Trump’s power to bend a compliant Republican Congress to his will has stalled in a series of political setbacks that threaten to divide the party in next year’s crucial midterm elections.
Last week, Trump bowed to demands from fellow Republicans to release the dossier on sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. His $2,000 stimulus check proposal gets approval cold reception On Capitol Hill; his broader efforts to take back affordability have stoked intra-party debate over midterm campaign priorities.
Late Friday, he lost one of his once staunchest allies, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene, the instigator who pushed for the release of Epstein documents, announced she would resign from Congress in January amid an online spat between the president and the congresswoman. That would at least temporarily shrink the already slim Republican majority.
The Republican Party’s growing infighting does not bode well for its efforts to prevent another election day defeat, as it experienced in off-year elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia and California earlier this month.
Pyrrhic victory
Republicans ostensibly won the fight against the government shutdown, but they did so by blocking the extension of widely popular tax credits under the Affordable Care Act. Millions of Americans now face rising health insurance premiums, and the president’s party is divided On how to respond.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who has often sparred with Trump over Epstein and other issues, this week dismissed the president’s efforts to oust him in a safe Republican Kentucky district.
“I won. He lost,” Massey said.
Even the party’s typically moderate congressional leaders — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune — are divided, with Thune preferring to oppose Trump.
Thune first refused to comply with Trump’s repeated demands to end the shutdown by changing Senate rules. The two congressional leaders then feuded over the handling of the Epstein legislation. That quickly turned into another fight over a legislative provision designed to enrich a group of Republican senators. Now they are passing the buck on Russian sanctions legislation.
Trump’s weakening and party fragmentation hurt the president’s prospects of advancing his legislative agenda around the central issue of the upcoming election: the state of the U.S. economy.
Trump has bounced back from the brink of defeat before, most notably when he left Washington in disgrace after losing the 2021 election and the Capitol riots on January 6, only to triumph in 2024.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his concerns about the party’s messaging ahead of the 2026 election, with Democrats aiming to retake at least the House of Representatives. That would give the party joint control of the state’s finances, subpoena power and a credible check on Trump.
“Affordability should be our word, not their word,” Trump said on Monday, referring to Democratic victories in November by focusing on household budget issues.
‘Affordability’ news
Only 15% of voters In a Fox News poll Saying Trump’s policies are helping the economy, 76% have a negative view of the economy, and Trump’s approval rating fell to 41% – the lowest point of the year in the poll.
Vice President Vance called on voters to be patient and predicted an economic boom was coming. “While we have made great progress, it will take some time for Americans to feel it,” he said during a Breitbart news conference on Thursday.
Trump even rolled back some tariffs, particularly on agricultural products such as Brazilian bananas and coffee, a tacit admission that his favorite policy tool also raises costs for consumers.
Johnson’s fate is closely tied to that of Trump, who has increasingly struggled to maintain control of his slim majority. Both he and Trump were challenged this week on the Epstein bill, going back on their word in the face of inevitable defeat after months of fighting the law.
Thune also rejected Johnson’s request to amend the bill to allow the Justice Department to redact information from the documents. The Senate unanimously approved the bill before it even received it — a sign of how toxic the Epstein saga has become.
Johnson also said that he “very angryThune inserted a provision into the bill to end the shutdown that could allow a group of Republican senators to sue to obtain millions of dollars in damages from taxpayers over the seizure of phone records during the Biden administration.
Democrats have used the provision to attack vulnerable Republicans running for reelection, such as Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
Meanwhile, the party’s legislative agenda has been largely stalled since July, in part because of the government shutdown. But those seven weeks of rest masked deep divisions now emerging among Republicans.
They have yet to agree on how to handle the spending bill needed to avoid another shutdown at the end of January. They are now trying to craft a Republican health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act — a goal Republicans have failed to achieve in 15 years. Trump said on Friday he hoped to complete the work by January 30.
Many of the most at-risk Republicans want to extend existing Affordable Care Act subsidies for at least another year to avoid being accused of sending premiums soaring for tens of millions of Americans, but Trump has vowed to oppose any such measure.
Trump’s shaky influence was evident when he began touting $2,000 checks to Americans that he claimed would be paid for by tariff revenue. Enough Senate Republicans have told Bloomberg they oppose repealing the measure.
“I think it’s crazy to send money to people when we have a deficit,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said this week.
Redistricting is counterproductive
Trump’s push for Republican states to gerrymander their congressional districts in an effort to lock in a Republican House majority has also backfired, with Democrats likely to gain seats from the map battles he initiated. Indiana Republicans defy Trump’s public threats to redraw map; Texas GOP’s partisan map is dangerous The federal court ruling and Trump’s actions prompted Democratic states like California to redraw their maps.
Trump himself lashed out, telling reporters he had yelled at staff about trade. he quipped he will fire If the Fed doesn’t cut rates faster, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant will.
He harshly rebuked reporters for questioning his stance on the Epstein dossier, asking about his family’s business ties to Saudi Arabia and the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi during an Oval Office meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump also called for the arrest and possible death penalty of a group of Democratic lawmakers who urged the military and intelligence community not to comply with illegal orders. That earned him mild rebuke from Republicans like Thune, who dodged the question and concluded by saying he disagreed with Trump’s remarks.