The GOP has allowed Trump to expand his authority. Here’s where they’re pushing back : NPR

The Republican-controlled House and Senate have done little to stand in President Trump's way—even as his actions have encroached on the territory reserved for them by the Constitution.

But there are signs that some Republican lawmakers are trying to reassert their independence.

When news broke last week that the Pentagon had carried out a second strike on two people on a near-destroyed suspected drug-trafficking ship in the Caribbean, even some Republicans expressed alarm.

“Someone made a terrible decision,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. This was reported to reporters at the Capitol. “Someone has to be held accountable. This is our job. This is part of supervision. It's pretty simple.”

The strikes are not the only actions that have prompted a handful of Republicans to engage with the Trump administration. Some have criticized Trump's tariffs, such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“Our lobster fishermen, our blueberry growers, our potato farmers will pay for this,” Collins said in October before the Yes vote. cancel tariffs in Canada.

In anticipation of the upcoming duration of extended health care subsidiesSen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., warned last month of “a massive crisis if Congress doesn’t act.”

Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon has been one of the most consistent critics of Trump's handling of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Bacon repeatedly calls this a soft approach, especially in contrast to Trump's approach to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The velvet glove, the treatment of Putin on the red carpet, and then the condescending, boorish behavior of the president and vice president towards Zelensky is a contrast,” Bacon told Nebraska Public Media earlier this year.

Senators also opposed Trump's periodic calls to end the filibuster. “You had to smoke magic pot to vote on this,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters during the 43-day government shutdown that ended last month.

And Trump's reluctance to release the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. stimulated a break between the president and one of his closest allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

“He called me a traitor for supporting these women,” she said.

Moments of GOP resistance or a growing trend?

After months of the White House pressuring Congress on tariffs, appropriations and military intervention, even this cautious resistance is an aberration, says former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Flake says the shift is accelerating as Trump's approval ratings decline. Discontent has also grown following Republicans' poor showing in off-year elections last month.

“There was a lot of concern about what he could do to you in the election,” Flake said. “It's decreasing.”

Flake, who did not run for re-election in 2018 in part because he refused to back Trump unconditionally, says some lawmakers are now more willing to say out loud what they have long said behind closed doors.

“Obviously behind the scenes it's a completely different game,” he said. “This migration is happening, and when Republicans get there, they will be in the new-old place where they were on some of these threshold issues that have animated conservatives for decades.”

But this is not the first time observers have declared a new era only for Trump to tighten control over Republicans in Congress, including after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Many of us were wrong about how long this went on,” he said.

Most Republicans expressing dissent are retiring, representing rival districts or are longtime centrists. And some of the splits with Trump were less about traditional Republican values ​​than about a call to embrace the populist platform on which he ran.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Congress has made several recent attempts to push back against the White House, such as passing resolutions condemning tariffs and boat strikes, but they have not been very successful or sufficient.

“I would like to see more, and I believe that if we don't stand up for our powers under the Constitution, no one else will,” Murkowski told NPR in an interview.

Constitutional role of Congress

The Framers gave Congress the power to appropriate funds, declare war, and levy taxes such as tariffs.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., says it's unfair to say Congress has abdicated its authority as an independent, co-equal branch of government.

“I don't know how different it is,” Thune told NPR. “Often, if I have a disagreement with the administration, I don’t challenge it publicly. But we have a responsibility as partners to try to implement the agenda for the American people that they voted for.”

Molly Reynolds, a Brookings Institution expert on Congress, says it's true that this is not just a Trump-era phenomenon. Congress has ceded power to the executive and judicial branches for decades.

“And in some cases, Congress has willingly and actively participated in sacrificing its power to other branches of government,” she said.

Reynolds said it didn't start with Trump's willingness to act more unilaterally during his second term, but it did accelerate the trend. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) recently stated: Katie Miller Podcast that: “We have a joke about how I’m not actually the Speaker of the House.”

Reynolds, who jokingly calls herself a proponent of the first branch, says it's no coincidence that the legislative branch is established in Article 1 of the Constitution. According to her, the authors of the bill considered the legislative branch to be closest to the people. Separation of powers and checks and balances are fundamental concepts of the American form of government.

Reynolds said there is precedent for Congress taking steps to restore its power, such as Watergate-era reforms aimed at preserving the power of the president.

“It was a really different political moment than the one we're in now,” Reynolds said, noting that politics today is more polarized. “And this partly makes it difficult to see the prospects for such a surge in institutional patriotism.”