It Really Is Trump’s Party Now

A year and half ago, a small group of House Republican hard-liners ousted a speaker for the first time in history. His hanging offense: passing a “continuing resolution,” or CR, to fund the government for six weeks.

Fast-forward to Tuesday: Not only did many of those same hard-liners back a GOP speaker’s CR — this one for six months, not weeks — but the “hell no” House Freedom Caucus even endorsed the move, with many members voting for a funding extension for the first time.

For those of us who have covered Hill Republicans for years, it’s like up is now down and down is now up.

There’s only one explanation for this topsy-turvy new reality in the Capitol, and it’s President Donald Trump.

Seven weeks into his second term, Trump is redefining GOP orthodoxy in so many ways it’s difficult to keep track. He has shattered Republicans’ long history of muscular globalism in favor of an “America First” posture, sidelining an entire wing of the GOP. He’s leaned into protectionist economics in a way Republicans have long shunned and somehow convinced longtime free market champions to defend his policies as smart negotiating.

But the turnabout on the House floor has been especially stark. Without much drama at all, he’s convinced even the most skeptical Republicans to extend a spending deal negotiated in part by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer — making them swallow the kind of long-term patch that both fiscal hawks and Pentagon cheerleaders have railed against for years.

It’s just the latest reminder: It’s Trump’s party, and what he says goes.

"Normally I wouldn’t support the CR because I think it shows Congress is not doing our jobs,” conservative Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) told ABC News. But this time? “Trump is behind it.”

It’s not that Trump gave conservatives nothing. Many got face time, or at least call time with the president — like Burlison, who praised Trump and his staff for listening to his concerns before he agreed to get in line.

And when I ran into Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), one of the eight Republicans who ousted McCarthy, he pulled out a piece of paper to explain that the current bill cuts $7 billion in spending over the prior year.

When I pointed out that was a drop in the bucket compared with the $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending that lawmakers would be extending, he sighed and agreed.

“That’s not a lot of money, but it’s a start,” he said.

So if not the $7 billion, what got him to yes? Take a guess.

“He’s never lied to me,” Burchett said about Trump, citing a conversation where the president promised to continue making cuts through his Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

There were through-the-looking-glass moments pretty much everywhere you went around the House on Tuesday. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) showed up to a leadership news conference and said he was “100 percent behind this continuing resolution” — this from the leader of a group that made its name opposing GOP leaders’ spending deals.

“This is not your grandfather’s continuing resolution,” Harris said, pointing to provisions that fund deportations, defense and veterans and allow DOGE to slash away at waste.

Hmm — okay.

It didn’t stop there. Republicans also on Tuesday almost unanimously approved a discreet provision tucked into the rule setting up the final floor vote on the spending bill. It effectively snuffed out their own ability as lawmakers to stop Trump’s emergency tariffs — tariffs that many of them railed against for years and, as they voted, were driving massive losses in U.S. financial markets.

Republicans argued the move was aimed at Democrats, who had filed privileged resolutions to terminate Trump’s emergency declarations, blocking them from being able to hijack the floor to force votes on the issue — votes that could force many swing district Republicans into an uncomfortable spot.

But by blocking Democrats, Republicans also willfully neutered their own authority, as Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) was all too happy to note on the floor.

“They slipped in a little clause letting them escape ever having to debate or vote on Trump’s tariffs,” McGovern said. “Isn’t that clever?”

I couldn’t help but think back to the Republican National Convention last July, when I asked Speaker Mike Johnson about how he, as a self-proclaimed free-trader, could be okay with Trump’s tariff threats. At the time, the Louisiana Republican suggested Trump’s threats were a “trial balloon” aimed at sparking debate.

“I don't think that's President Trump's plan,” he said at the time, promising “a lot of thoughtful discussion” and a “vigorous debate that we'll all have” about trade policy.

Some debate: Aside from McGovern’s diatribe, the tariff provision was barely mentioned on the floor Tuesday before Republicans approved it. Johnson earlier in the day defended Trump’s economic policy to reporters, saying the tariffs are needed to “start the process of repairing and restoring the economy.”

“You got to give it time,” he said.

Yes, we’re only about 50 days into Trump’s second term, but this much we already know: With every passing moment, power is going only in one direction. And one day congressional Republicans might sober up and realize it’s not ever coming back.