On a tour through Asia last fall, President Trump took a moment on the world stage to celebrate a legislative victory at home: After months of iron-fisted pressure, he had compelled Republicans to pass legislation that cut taxes and slashed into the country\u2019s social safety net.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Put it all into one bill, and if we get it done, we\u2019re done for four years,\u2019\u201d Mr. Trump said during an October speech<\/a> in Tokyo. \u201cWe don\u2019t need anything more from Congress in terms of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ever since, Mr. Trump has been intent on testing that theory, daring lawmakers to defy him and doing his best to vanquish them from office if they do. But after a retributive romp through primary season, Mr. Trump\u2019s style of governing \u2014 unilateral, and often impatient \u2014 has collided with restive Republicans who seem to be exacting some political vengeance of their own.<\/p>\n On Wednesday evening, four House Republicans sided with Democrats<\/a> to demand Mr. Trump withdraw U.S. forces from the conflict with Iran or win approval from Congress, rebuking a president who has repeatedly said he does not need congressional authorization to continue the conflict.<\/p>\n That came on the heels of another high-profile setback: a Republican revolt<\/a> against a $1.8 billion fund to reward Trump supporters who claim political persecution by Democrats. Many Republican senators had indicated that they would not move forward with plans to fund Mr. Trump\u2019s immigration agenda unless those plans were axed. This week, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said that the administration would abandon the effort.<\/p>\n But on Wednesday, just as the Senate moved to debate an immigration bill that they had held up because of the fund, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he wasn\u2019t quite sure if the fund was dead or on hold.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it,\u201d he told a reporter who asked about the pot of money, effectively jamming his foot in the way of a door lawmakers had hoped to close. \u201cI think it\u2019s so important.\u201d<\/p>\n No wonder Republicans want to put something in writing.<\/p>\n Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a Republican whom Mr. Trump helped dispatch during the primaries, shared a Wall Street Journal editorial<\/a> on social media earlier in the day, calling on Congress to pass legislation to kill the fund.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way to ensure the Trump retribution fund is more than mostly dead would be for Congress to put a stake through it,\u201d Mr. Cornyn wrote, echoing the editorial.<\/p>\n (The senator has been posting up a storm about the concept of betrayal in recent days. Last week, he shared a fable<\/a> about a frog who was wronged by a scorpion.)<\/p>\n Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted in favor of impeaching Mr. Trump in 2021 and lost his primary, also supports legislation that would kill the fund. \u201cYou want to make sure it\u2019s really dead,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n On other matters of national security, several Republicans pushed back on Mr. Trump\u2019s decision to appoint Bill Pulte to serve as the acting director of national intelligence. In his role as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Mr. Pulte publicized the personal mortgage information<\/a> of several prominent Trump critics, and pushed for federal investigations into them.<\/p>\n