For House Republicans in the US, the political year started with a pep rally of sorts as president Donald Trump gathered them at Washington’s Kennedy Center for a stemwinder of a speech. <\/p>\n
But by the time lawmakers had completed their first week of work this midterm election year, fractures in the party were already showing.<\/p>\n
From pushback to Trump’s self-described \u201cDonroe doctrine\u201d of aggression in the Western Hemisphere to breaks in party unity over health care, Republican lawmakers are displaying signs of independence from Trump after spending much of the last year acquiescing to his practically every demand. <\/p>\n
It showed a new dynamic in the GOP as Republicans embark on difficult campaign to keep control of both the House and Senate.<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, speaking at the US-Mexico border with a group of Republican Senate candidates, said they were \u201cgoing to be focused like a laser\u201d on issues of affordability and pointed to legislation in the works on housing and health care.<\/p>\n
Thune’s border trip and talk of affordability were a nod back to some of the core themes of Trump’s presidential campaign. <\/p>\n
US President says\u00a0Delcy Rodriguez will pay \u201ca very big price\u201d if she\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0\u201cdo what\u2019s right\u201d.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
But the focus in Washington of late has instead been dominated by Trump’s military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, his threats to use military force to take control of Greenland, the release of case files on Jeffrey Epstein and a debate over extending subsidies for insurance offered under the Affordable Care Act \u2014 an issue where Republicans have long struggled to find unity.<\/p>\n
Recent shootings by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in several US cities, including one that killed a woman in Minneapolis, have also raised new questions about Republicans’ hard-line immigration agenda and shifted attention away from Trump’s handling of the border, which they see as a political success.<\/p>\n
Even so, Trump still has plenty of command over most of the party. <\/p>\n
That was demonstrated this week by a pair of unsuccessful House veto override votes in which most GOP members stuck with the president despite previously voting for the low-profile bills.<\/p>\n
Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ had been delayed for days, waiting for the perfect conditions. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has been one of the few Republicans to consistently defy Trump, said that \u201cthere was some bully pulpit intimidation going on\u201d from the president that caused the veto overrides to fail.<\/p>\n
Still, Democrats are making the case that Trump is becoming distracted from the needs of Americans, especially after the attack on Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s lurching towards another endless, expensive war, all the while American families here are struggling with skyrocketing costs,\u201d said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.<\/p>\n
Venezuela war powers vote draws GOP support<\/p>\n
To prove their point, Democrats are forcing votes on war powers resolutions that would stop Trump from attacking Venezuela without congressional approval. <\/p>\n
Such measures are rarely successful, but a procedural vote on the legislation drew support from five Republicans Thursday, setting up a final vote next week. <\/p>\n
House Democrats are also pushing forward a similar resolution.<\/p>\n
The GOP senators who voted for the legislation tried to defuse the conflict with Trump by arguing their positions were in line with his own campaign promises to scale back US commitments overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cA drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump\u2019s goal of ending foreign entanglements,\u201d Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican who voted for the war powers resolution, said in a lengthy statement explaining his vote.<\/p>\n
Trump reacted with fury. <\/p>\n
The president promptly called for the five Republicans, which included Maine Senator Susan Collins, who is up for reelection this year, to \u201cnever be elected to office again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans are already dealing with retirements from several lawmakers who had uneasy relationships with Trump, and there was worry that such clashes could complicate their campaign picture even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Susan isn\u2019t the senator from Maine, we\u2019re going to end up with a Democrat,\u201d said Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be 10 times worse. But I do appreciate that President Trump is absolutely pissed off.\u201d<\/p>\n
GOP pushes back on Trump’s Greenland plans<\/p>\n
Trump’s desire to possess Greenland and his administration’s decision not to rule out military force also met significant resistance from GOP lawmakers this week.<\/p>\n
Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is retiring after crossing Trump last summer, took to the Senate floor to proclaim that he was \u201csick of stupid.\u201d He specifically criticized White House deputy chief of policy Stephen Miller, who made comments that Greenland should be part of the US<\/p>\n
\u201cI want good advice for this president, because I want this president to have a good legacy,\u201d Tillis added. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this nonsense on what\u2019s going on with Greenland is a distraction from the good work he\u2019s doing, and the amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Republicans, including Thune and Senate Armed Services Committee chair Senator Roger Wicker, also gently pushed back on military threats against Denmark, which is a NATO ally of the US<\/p>\n
After meeting with the Danish ambassador, Wicker said it was Denmark’s right not to sell Greenland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m troubled by Greenland. I’m troubled by some of the things he does. I don\u2019t get it,\u201d said Nebraska Representative Don Bacon, another retiring Republican. <\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel like Congress should be more independent and should provide checks and balances here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bacon added that Trump still had the ability to \u201cbully\u201d his Republican colleagues, but that Trump’s threats had \u201cstiffened my spine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health care votes expose divisions<\/p>\n
During Trump’s speech at the Kennedy Center on Tuesday, he urged Republicans to own the issue of health care. <\/p>\n
Yet when the House voted Thursday on a Democratic proposal to extend expired health care subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans, 17 Republicans broke with party leadership to help pass the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople recognise the challenge here, which is to address health care affordability,\u201d said Representative Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who voted for the proposal.<\/p>\n
He still criticised the Affordable Care Act, a hallmark piece of legislation for Democrats, yet the health care debate unfolding in Congress is one that Democrats feel confident making a central campaign issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this first, full week of the new year, House Democrats \u2014 every single one of us joined by 17 Republicans \u2014 have partnered in a bipartisan way to protect the health care of the American people,\u201d said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries following the vote.<\/p>\n
January 6 plaque coming out of storage<\/p>\n
On the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, Trump told House Republicans that he had told his supporters to go \u201cpeacefully and patriotically\u201d to confront Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election. <\/p>\n
The White House also unveiled a website that portrayed the January 6 attack as a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d against him by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n
But the Senate, which Republicans control, this week agreed to display a plaque honouring the police who defended the Capitol \u2014 a cause that has become a point of contention with Trump as president. <\/p>\n
The plaque had been kept in storage rather than being displayed because House Speaker Mike Johnson had said the memorial did not comply with the law.<\/p>\n
It was Tillis again who pushed the issue on the Republican side. <\/p>\n
He said it was important to honor the police and staff who risked their own lives and safety that day.<\/p>\n
Democrats who joined in the effort said they were alarmed by the White House’s attempt to recast the narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s so important we be honest with the American people about what happened,\u201d said Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For House Republicans in the US, the political year started with a pep rally of sorts as president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-227122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}