Reporter's Notebook: GOP rebels defy Trump as congressional grip continues to weaken across multiple votes

President Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican-controlled Congress is not quite what it was.

Republicans in Congress dealt the president two blows in recent days and came within shouting distance of two more.

That’s not to say that the president’s influence among the GOP is completely waning on Capitol Hill. Congressional Republicans are still a pro-MAGA group. But something is different.

2026 is an election year. Some Republicans are trained on their own re-election chances. You don’t even have to squint to see some fractures among Republicans when it comes to supporting the president on individual issues.

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The striking examples came within hours of each other last Thursday.

In the fall, the Senate narrowly rejected a motion to begin a debate about U.S. military action in the Caribbean. All 47 senators who caucus with the Democrats voted in favor of starting the debate. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined the Democrats, bringing the yeas to 49. So two votes were needed to agree to the motion and begin a debate. Remember, a 50-50 tie loses in the Senate. It was a close call.

But last week, three more GOP senators voted with Democrats to initiate debate on another war powers resolution after Trump ordered the strike on Venezuela. Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., aligned this time with Paul and Murkowski.

It was a brushback pitch for the president. Hawley opposed the war powers resolution regarding strikes in the Caribbean last fall. But the move against Venezuela moved Hawley to a yes on the revamped measure.

"We don't know what might happen in Venezuela. We may want to commit troops," said Hawley. "I just think that in that eventuality, Congress would need to then be on the hook for it."

"The previous votes have been more hypothetical. This vote's about a real incursion. It's about a real invasion of a foreign country," said Paul.

Sen. John Husted, R-Ohio, supported the administration’s position that it had constitutional prerogative to hit Venezuela without congressional authorization and voted no. But even Husted understood why some of his colleagues switched their votes.

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The reason? Saber-rattling.

"The rhetoric around Greenland has probably been the issue that's driven this the most," said Husted. "I think everybody's really excited about how well things have gone in Venezuela, but they don't like the idea that perhaps things could go differently as it relates to Greenland."

Trump says the U.S. will do "something" on Greenland, "whether they like it or not."

And that’s to say nothing about threats of possibly hitting Venezuela again. Moving against Cuba. Even Colombia. And after major protests, Iran could be in the mix, too.

"Bombing may rally people to the regime instead of weakening it. You can’t drop bombs in the middle of protests and protect civilians," cautioned Paul on ABC.

Others are concerned about overextending the military. Especially without guidance from Capitol Hill.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

"The president has said we're going to take Venezuelan oil. It will take two years to rebuild the Venezuelan oil infrastructure. Is our fleet going to stay there for two years?" asked Warner on Fox.

The Senate is now poised to debate the issue and vote in the coming days. But it’s unclear whether voting to begin debate on such an issue is the same as actually voting to undercut the president.

Trump shot out a message saying Republicans should be "ashamed" of the five who voted alongside the Democrats. He added that the five renegades "should never be elected to office again."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., backed the president, describing the votes by the five as "a gift" to Venezuela.

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"They're dead wrong," said Graham. "They're going to own screwing up the best chance we've ever had to liberate the people of Venezuela."

Vice President JD Vance downplayed GOPers voting to harness the authority of the president.

"We talked to some of the senators who are going to vote the wrong way, in my view, on this resolution today. Much of their argument was based more on a legal technicality than any disagreement of policy," said Vance. "Every president, Democrat or Republican, believes the War Powers Act is fundamentally a fake unconstitutional law."

But Vance might not have seen it that way when he served as a Republican senator from Ohio. In October 2023, Vance was among 11 bipartisan senators who voted in favor of debating presidential war authority in Niger. Vance was among 13 bipartisan colleagues two months later who voted to begin debate on a resolution to block military action by President Joe Biden in Syria.

We’ll know by the end of the week if pressure by the administration prompts Republicans who sided with the Democrats to reverse themselves and stick with the president, or if they vote to hinder him on war powers and potential future intervention in Venezuela.

It was the House’s turn to throw some legislative chin music at the president a few hours later last Thursday. The House voted 230-196 on a Democratic bill to renew now-expired Obamacare subsidies for three years. In December, four House Republicans teamed with Democrats to engineer a parliamentary gambit to go around House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and force a vote on the floor.

While there were only four House Republicans who signed on to the Democratic parliamentary gambit in December, that number grew to 13 GOPers on a procedural vote to bring up the bill last week. It then blossomed to 17 Republicans on final passage. Everyone expected members like Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., to vote yes. But there were lots of surprises from Republicans who never hinted interest in this particular bill before. That includes Reps. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., Rob Wittman, R-Va., and Mike Carey, R-Ohio.

"There's a lot of people in the 3rd Congressional District that depend on these programs. And as a Navy SEAL, I always acted lawfully. But I did a lot of things that made me very uncomfortable doing. But it had to get done because otherwise the mission would fail. This mission is America, and it's the people in my district," said Van Orden.

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Carey even referenced the "Unaffordable ACA Subsidy Extension Vote" in a news release. But Carey pointed out that "close to 45,000 Ohioans in our district currently have these plans, and I want to make sure that they do not lose access to a plan that they have relied on as Congress continues addressing the high cost of healthcare."

All of this came just after the president asked Republicans to have "flexibility" on abortion as they work on healthcare — something which is anathema to many pro-life conservatives. And the president threatened to veto that bill if it ever made it through the Senate, which is doubtful.

Speaking of vetoes, Trump unexpectedly vetoed two bills that moved unanimously through Congress last year. One bill would finish a pipeline to bring drinking water to southwestern Colorado. Another bill would give the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida control over 30 acres of land in the Everglades and allow them to protect it against tropical storm flooding events.

Trump said he vetoed the Colorado bill because Democrat Gov. Jared Polis was "bad." The Miccosukee Tribe sued over the construction of "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Everglades.

The House voted 248-177 with one member voting "present" on the Colorado bill. That’s a majority. But veto overrides require two-thirds. With 425 members casting ballots (the "present" vote doesn’t count against the total), the House needed 284 yeas to override.

The veto override on the Everglades bill was 236-188. Again, a majority. But with 425 members voting, a successful override needed 283 yeas.

Congress has only overridden a presidential veto 112 times in U.S. history, and it’s notable that a chunk of Republicans went against the president on both issues.

Now some Republicans are taking on the president over the administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

"It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question," said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a member of the Banking Committee. "I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved."

The composition of the Banking Committee is 13-11 in favor of Republicans. So a defection by Tillis would, at minimum, produce a tie. That could impede confirmation of Powell’s successor.

Frankly, these rebellions are no different from what many presidents endure from members of their own party from time to time, especially in an election year. Lawmakers sometimes need to put real estate between themselves and the president. Other lawmakers believe that the president’s political amperage is not what it once was.

We are now moving into the second year of Trump’s term. But in many ways, this is "year six" of the Trump presidency — having served from 2017-2021. Some Republicans started to abandon President George H.W. Bush in the sixth year of his presidency over Iraq. President Ronald Reagan witnessed the same phenomenon during year six over Iran-Contra. And certainly President Richard Nixon experienced this during Watergate in 1974.

There’s no evidence of a mass exodus among congressional Republicans when it comes to Trump, but there are fissures. And that’s why the president may not have the same near-lockstep backing he enjoyed from congressional Republicans in 2026 that he enjoyed in 2025.