Here’s why Republicans just stood up to Trump |
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Here’s why Republicans just stood up to Trump
The suspension of Trump’s weaponization fund shows how the system is (kind of) working.
Don’t look now, but it appears that Congress is actually doing its constitutionally prescribed job: checking presidential power.
On Monday multiple outlets reported that President Donald Trump was backing off of his so-called anti-weaponization fund: the $1.776 billion discretionary account Trump functionally awarded himself as a result of his lawsuit against the IRS. While it’s unclear whether this decision is permanent or final, the reporting all suggests that it is the direct result of an unusual revolt by Senate Republicans, who have openly defied Trump over the fund.
“It was a nonstarter from the get go,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told NBC News.
Congress is not the only actor to push back on the fund. One federal judge had temporarily paused its implementation, which provided a face-saving pretext for the Department of Justice when it announced the fund’s suspension. Another judge had opened an investigation into the lawfulness of the settlement that created it. And state leaders in New York and California had proposed legislation that would tax any payouts from the fund to their residents at 100 percent.
There’s more to Trump’s corruption than stealing money
But lower courts and blue states have been two of the most consistent actors checking Trump’s abuse of power throughout his presidency. The Republican majority in Congress, by contrast, has been Trump’s accomplice, and he had just successfully targeted members in several primaries to reinforce his dominance. That they intervened in a dramatic and potentially decisive way here demands explanation: What about this fund, amid all of Trump’s corrupt and anti-democratic behavior, galvanized a backlash?
To find out, I spoke with DC insiders on both sides of the aisle, as well as leading scholars of American politics. They told a fairly consistent story: one in which the awful election year politics of giving Trump a fund to pay out January 6 rioters, combined with the specific timing of a must-pass funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), forced usually deferential Republicans’ hands.
“We’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place right now,” a Senate Republican aide told me on Monday. “There were dozens of senators that had concerns [on our side].”
This does not mean that Republicans in Congress are, going forward, going to be a consistent roadblock for Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. The circumstances here are specific, and they’re ultimately members of a party he controls.
But it does........