Once-loyal allies are disobeying the President’s diktats – and his iron grip over the Republican Party appears to be finally loosening
Donald Trump’s once iron-clad grip on his party appears to be loosening after a succession of blows and rebellions culminated in the forced release of the Epstein files – a humiliating reversal after months of obstruction by the White House.
Once-loyal allies in the House have turned on him over Jeffrey Epstein, while Republicans outside Washington DC are steadfastly resisting the President‘s threats over other issues close to his heart.
Murmurings are also growing about Trump’s sinking poll numbers, rising inflation and the Democrats’ clean sweep of election victories this month.
“Trump is at an inflection point in his presidency,” said Dr Mark Shanahan, associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey. “Republicans are, for the first time, actively discussing life after Trump. Unless he can wrest back control – and he doesn’t have too many levers for that – he will be sidelined as legislators scramble to hold onto Congress next year.
“On paper, he should be at the height of his powers, unbound by electoral worries and in charge of the federal government through the line from the White House to a Republican congress and a conservative judiciary. But in Epstein he has encountered his kryptonite.
“The crucial aspect of this, and why he may lose his grip on the GOP is that he sees every issue through the personal effect it has on him and then acts accordingly. He’s short-termist, capricious and wholly self-interested. Unfortunately for him, we’re seeing the unravelling of the whole Epstein situation at the worst possible time for the President.”
He added: “How he negotiates the next few weeks will be crucial to his legacy.”
Amid these growing headwinds, a previously pliant GOP appears to be learning that the President can be defied, thanks to the few Republicans who have dared to put their heads above the parapet.
Marjorie Taylor Greene
The Georgia congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone from one of Trump’s most hardcore loyalists to an outspoken critic.
Greene, 51, a Maga firebrand dubbed the “female Trump” who made a name for herself lashing out against enemies of the President, has undergone a political transformation in recent months.
She has criticised the President for his support of Israel in Gaza and military action in Iran for damaging his “America First” project, but the Epstein files have blown what was a rift into a gaping crevasse.
Trump’s Maga base has demanded the release of the Epstein files for years. After he changed his mind on releasing the files, branding them a “Democrat hoax”, Maga went nuclear. Prominent figures questioned what he was trying to hide and called for a special prosecutor to investigate.
Greene became a prominent voice in the snowballing campaign, prompting Trump to brand her a “traitor”, adding: “All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”
Greene has said Trump’s “hurtful” comments had fuelled threats to her safety. Now Greene’s break with the President and Congress’ near-unanimous support for releasing the files has prompted new questions: could Greene take Maga with her – and bring down Trump?
In recent months she has pivoted to appear a more likeable, less divisive politician, turning down her abrasive style of politics, and “humbly” apologising for her previous rhetoric this month.
Thomas Massie
Republican Representative Thomas Massie was another essential figure defying Trump to get the bill through Congress.
The Kentucky congressman was a co-sponsor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, alongside Democrat Representative Ro Khanna of California.
But like Greene, Massie had to endure personal attacks and threats from the President. After Massie filed the discharge petition to release the documents , Trump endorsed a primary challenger against him in Kentucky, and hurled abuse at him about his new marriage after the death of his first wife last year.
“Anyway, have a great life Thomas and (?),” Trump wrote. “His wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”
Despite the pressure, Massie stood firm. And when it became clear Republicans would support the bill, Trump reversed course to support it. “He got tired of me winning,” Massie said.
Alluding to a future GOP after Trump, he said: “This vote, the record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency.”
Since October, Massie has secured more than $2 million in funding for his campaign, suggesting that when it comes to Epstein, it is Massie and other Republican mutineers – not Trump – who are winning the support of voters.
Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace
The two other Republican House members to break with Trump to sign the discharge petition for the bill were Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace.
Boebert was pulled into the White House Situation Room shortly before the vote by Justice Department and FBI officials who tried to persuade her to withdraw her name.
Meanwhile Mace, a survivor of sexual assault who has spoken about being raped as a teenager, also refused to remove her name from the petition. She claimed that she had not been asked to do so.
“No one has threatened me,” she said. “The President hasn’t threatened me, and the President didn’t ask me get off the discharge petition.”
Neither congresswomen has suggested that she wants to undermine Trump. However, their rare act of rebellion has revealed the chinks in his armour and shown that his party, when they face down his threats, can win.
“For the first time, Maga is seeing legislators they consider their own questioning the Trump power trip,” said Shanahan. “Whether it’s Maga firebrands such as Marjorie Taylor Greene stepping up to pour scorn on Trump’s Nobel-hunting over Gaza, or relatively moderate conservatives such as Mace and Massie taking issue with presidential overreach.
“Maga wants the Epstein files released, but from the prairies to the sun belt they’re sensing a cover-up. For the first time, Trump doesn’t have an answer for them and there is a real danger Maga won’t just become restive, but will fracture and fall in behind other emerging Republican leaders.”
Rodric Bray and Greg Goode
Away from the Epstein furore, another battle is threatening to undermine the President’s hold on his party.
In his desperation to hold onto control of Congress at next November’s midterm elections, Trump is attempting to redraw state congressional maps to manufacture more GOP seats. Redistricting usually happens every 10 years, with the last four years ago, so this mid-decade redistricting is patently not linked to any new population data.
To win back the House, Democrats only need three more seats. Republican-led states including Missouri, North Carolina and Texas have obeyed Trump’s orders, but not all Republicans are making it easy for him. In Indiana and Kansas, in particular, leaders are resisting his demands.
In Indiana, Vice President JD Vance has visited to persuade lawmakers to support the efforts, while Trump even invited the Senate President pro tempore Rodric Bray and state House Speaker Todd Huston to the Oval Office to discuss the matter.
However, in a major blow to Trump’s efforts, Bray declared this month that there were insufficient votes to carry this through, prompting fury in the Trump camp. The President lashed out at Bray and state senator Greg Goode, calling them RINOs (Republicans in name only), and adding that they “should DO THEIR JOB, AND DO IT NOW! If not, let’s get them out of office, ASAP”.
Mark Schreiber and Kansas holdouts
Similarly in Kansas, which is under Republicans control, Trump is struggling to force through redistricting, with the House Speaker dropping it this month because of 10 Republican holdouts.
One of those holdouts, Mark Schreiber, said he had not heard “a good reason yet to vote for it”. “To me that’s not the purpose of redistricting. It’s not used as a political tool to increase your majority, it’s to adjust for population changes,” he said.
“If they want to threaten me with something, I don’t know what it’d be,” he added. “I’m not changing that viewpoint.”
If Trump hopes to hang on to Congress next year, and avoid becoming a lame-duck president, he could do worse than focus on the issues voters are telling him they are most worried about: the cost of living.
“It will be the informed Americans who decide whether Republicans hold the Senate and House,” said Shanahan. “They hold the balance of power and polls suggest they’re not impressed by this second Trump administration. These are the centrists, soft Republicans and economically driven Democrats who voted GOP last year. They’re seeing stubbornly high inflation, rising prices in the supermarket and genuinely fear the loss of ACA subsidies.
“Maga alone is not enough to keep Republicans in office… The lesson Republicans need to take into the midterms is to campaign on local issues; to make affordability mean something – and not to be seen to be a part of Trump’s pseudo court of Louis XIV. Americans are telling their representatives that the US doesn’t do Kings. The autocratically tended Trump is increasingly acting like one.”
