President Donald Trump has increasingly faced pushback from his “own friends and allies” in recent weeks leading to a series of “losses,” Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday, a dynamic that the outlet attributed to the president’s most powerful point of leverage crumbling in real time.
“President Donald Trump is suddenly taking losses from his own friends and allies, especially on Capitol Hill,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.
For instance, Trump’s White House ballroom project is in “serious jeopardy” as GOP senators sour at the $1 billion ask for ballroom security. Trump’s proposal for the creation of a new battleship fleet named after himself also hit a speedbump as Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee expressed a “wave of skepticism,” Punchbowl News reported on Monday.
Trump’s $1.7 billion “anti-weaponization” fund has also sparked fierce pushback from GOP lawmakers, and this week, House Republicans may end up supporting a bill to provide $600 million in aid to Ukraine, a bill that Punchbowl News reported “Trump is certain to oppose.”
The cause for the recent uptick in GOP defiance, Punchbowl News argued, was the primary election season wrapping up around the nation. Trump’s endorsements – “worth more than ever in GOP primaries,” Punchbowl News’ report reads – are no longer a threat for lawmakers who’ve made it past their primaries unscathed. As such, GOP lawmakers are “suddenly finding it advantageous to oppose” the president.
Punchbowl News flagged the wave of GOP opposition to Trump’s $1.7 billion fund – established to award payouts to his supporters who claim to have been unfairly targeted by the Biden administration’s Justice Department – as a key example of Trump’s leverage on his own party having waned.
“At least a dozen GOP senators said Monday that the White House’s attempt to quell the uproar over Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund wasn’t enough to win their support for advancing the immigration-centric package – something that should unify them,” Punchbowl News’ report reads.