When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Such is life with President Donald Trump, who’s warning that Republicans will be made to suffer — either in primaries or on Election Day — for voting against his unprecedented tariff regime.
First, let’s say this: Trump is wasting his energy. He can veto any tariff termination resolution and the vast majority of Republicans would absolutely uphold his veto. These resolutions are nothing more than a bad headline for the president. But Trump doesn’t like the optics of any Republicans voting against him. Ever.
Not that Trump cares, but this broadside is particularly poor congressional politics. If Trump just left the issue alone, voting against the tariffs would be a way for vulnerable GOP lawmakers to let off some steam and perhaps help their electoral prospects back home.
However, Trump doesn’t appear terribly interested in what might be helpful to rank-and-file Republicans. Trump suggested on Tuesday that Congress was done legislating for the entirety of his term. How’s that for motivation? Speaker Mike Johnson told us that what Trump actually meant was that “We had a very productive, very successful first year of the second term.” Got it.
Johnson was with Trump on Wednesday, but the speaker wasn’t aware that the president was going to unleash a political barrage against rank-and-file GOP members in the midst of the floor vote on the tariff resolution. Trump’s declaration didn’t change the outcome, which was a clear victory for Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic leaders.
A surprised Johson said the president “understands that he can veto anything that passes even through the Senate, and so it doesn’t change his policy.”
Trump’s threat didn’t impact how six Republicans voted. A half-dozen GOP lawmakers voted to cancel Trump’s emergency declaration allowing him to levy tariffs on Canada: Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Don Bacon (Neb.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Jeff Hurd (Colo.), Kevin Kiley (Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (Wash.).
Trump is already backing an expensive primary to Massie, an eight-term lawmaker, so the Kentucky Republican votes how he wants. Newhouse and Bacon are retiring. Kiley has been redistricted out of his central California seat.
That leaves Fitzpatrick, just about the only Republican who can win his suburban Philadelphia seat, and Hurd, who represents a seat that Trump won by fewer than 10 points in 2024.
Democrats will offer a flood of tariff resolutions in the coming weeks and months. Maybe Trump’s threat will have an impact.
But if Trump’s approval ratings stay where they are, Republicans may continue to buck him, betting that opposing an unpopular president is smart for the midterms.
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