President Donald Trump is facing increasing resistance from Republicans in Congress. Brett Samuels, White House reporter for The Hill, broke it down on WTOP.

Despite having a Republican majority in the House and Senate to help him along with his agenda, President Donald Trump has found himself facing increasing resistance in Congress.

The Hill reported the trend is occurring even though aides have argued that any lawmaker who falls out of line risks losing the president’s support.

But Brett Samuels, White House reporter for The Hill, wrote that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers from criticizing Trump’s actions or rebuffing some of his demands.

His article states there are five ways Republicans are breaking with Trump. Samuels joined Sandy Kozel on WTOP Sunday earlier to break those points down.

Read and listen to the interview below.

Brett Samuels, White House reporter for The Hill, joined Sandy Kozel on WTOP how Republicans are breaking with President Donald Trump.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Sandy Kozel:

You say there are five ways Republicans are breaking with Trump? Can you just quickly list those and we can break down one or two?

Brett Samuels:

Yeah. So one of the biggest ones has been foreign policy. We’ve seen some pushback. There’s also been pushback when it comes to tariffs, and particularly Trump’s desire to use tariff revenue to send dividend checks to Americans. And then we’re seeing some other areas as well on procedural matters in the Senate, when it comes to the filibuster and the blue slip policy, we’ve seen pushback and some others as well, where we’ve seen Republican lawmakers really kind of essentially put their foot down and say that they’re not supportive of certain actions that the president is trying to take.

Sandy Kozel:

Foreign policy has certainly been keeping the president busy in many areas of the world. Is this kind of scattered approach contributing to this division?

Brett Samuels:

Yeah, I think it’s been interesting to see when it comes to different foreign policy approaches, we’re seeing different Republicans and different sort of factions of the party push back, which I think is very telling and speaks to, like you said, that sort of scattershot approach. We’ve seen when it comes to Israel, folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene have taken issue with how the administration has essentially provided continuing support to Israel despite the ongoing war in Gaza. We’ve seen folks like Rand Paul be particularly upset with how the administration is building up forces near Venezuela and seeing increasing scrutiny of those drug boat strikes.

And then there’s other instances when it comes to the Ukraine war, where we’re seeing sort of traditional Republican hawks like Mitch McConnell really express frustration with kind of how the administration is pursuing a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. So I think that’s been an area where we’ve seen a wide array of Republicans really kind of express frustration with the president’s foreign policy.

Sandy Kozel:

Are more lawmakers really willing to challenge the president considering, and you mentioned her name, what big supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene did, she resigned rather than deal with a fight for her reelection?

Brett Samuels:

Yeah, I think it is very telling that despite some cracks, I think, emerging in terms of Republican sort of unity and support for the president’s agenda, the folks who we see speaking out, Marjorie Taylor Greene, to your point, she’s resigning from Congress as opposed to sort of branching out as a vocal Trump critic. Folks like Mitch McConnell are not running for reelection. Rand Paul, for example, has sort of always had this sort of brand of being a bit more libertarian and sort of branching out from the traditional GOP, or the Trump GOP, I should say. So it is certainly, I think, telling sort of who and when they’re picking or who is speaking out when they’re choosing to speak out. But certainly, that doesn’t necessarily completely eliminate the fact that there has been sort of this mounting frustration, I think, with some of the president’s policies.

Sandy Kozel:

Yeah, I guess that’s the big angle here, that there are cracks, as opposed to everybody just falling behind up to this point.

Brett Samuels:

Yeah, certainly. I think we saw, especially in those first seven or eight months of the Trump presidency, we did see this rather united front. Republicans were passing this big reconciliation package to get some of the president’s agenda passed. Everything seemed to be hunky dory. Republicans had majorities in Congress and the White House, and everything seemed to be going well.

And now we’ve made it almost a year into Trump’s second term here and there are some cracks showing and I think that coincides, obviously, with some polling that shows frustration with Republicans about the direction of the economy, the direction of the country. We’re seeing those election results earlier in November that showed Democrats performing well on key issues. I think it’s no coincidence that has happened at the same time that we’re seeing more Republicans speak out and kind of express some frustration with some of this administration’s decisions.

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