The group of 38 House Republicans who refused to vote for the spending and debt deal demanded by President-elect Donald J. Trump is largely made up of the most hard-right members — those limited-government fiscal hawks who have so defined themselves as hard-core conservatives in their districts that they believe they are impervious to a primary threat.
There was Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, known on Capitol Hill as Mr. No, who has never bent to Mr. Trump and so far never suffered politically for it. In 2020, when he tried to derail the passage of a coronavirus emergency relief bill, Mr. Trump called him a “third rate Grandstander” and said voters needed to “throw Massie out of Republican Party!”
Mr. Massie has won re-election twice since then.
Members like Representatives Andy Biggs of Arizona, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Tim Burchett of Tennessee have never voted for spending deals or debt ceiling increases. They also have well-known brands in their solidly Republican districts that allow them more freedom when it comes to stepping out of line from what the party’s leader demands.
And while they may not agree with Mr. Trump on government spending, many have gone out of their way to demonstrate loyalty in other ways. Some of the defectors were among those who showed up at the criminal courthouse in Manhattan last summer to show their support for Mr. Trump during his hush money trial.
Then there is Representative Chip Roy of Texas, who has been at odds with Mr. Trump since he declined to vote to overturn the 2020 election results and then endorsed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for president.
Mr. Roy has been publicly at war with the president-elect this week over Mr. Trump’s demand to raise the federal debt limit. He delivered a scathing lecture to his colleagues on the House floor on Thursday night, chiding them for talking tough on spending and then voting to allow more trillions to be added to the government debt.
The dozens of defections were the latest reminder of what has long been true: Mr. Trump can derail legislation on Capitol Hill and single-handedly kill someone’s chances of rising to a leadership position, but he has never been able to command lawmakers to pass legislation they fundamentally oppose or back a colleague with whom they have personal animosity.
Some of Thursday night’s rebels simply have nothing left to lose. Representative Bob Good of Virginia, for example, already suffered Mr. Trump’s wrath after making the politically fatal decision to endorse Mr. DeSantis in the Republican primary this year. Mr. Good lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger and is set to leave Congress in days.
Some of the 38 were wild cards. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina almost always lands herself on a list of Republicans who vote in an unusual and attention-grabbing way. Ms. Mace has flip-flopped on everything from transgender rights to Mr. Trump himself, but positioning herself as a die-hard fiscal conservative has long been part of her political brand. Representative Eli Crane of Arizona often says he was sent to Washington simply to disrupt the status quo.
The consequences of the defections are not yet clear.
In an appearance on Glenn Beck’s program on Friday, Mr. Roy conceded that he had to “manage” his relationship with Mr. Trump after the president-elect got the impression — wrongly, he insisted — that he was trying to kill the spending and debt plan.
Someone “leaked out of the room, somewhere down to Mar-a-Lago, that somehow I was being resistant,” Mr. Roy said. He claimed he was merely negotiating “to give the president runway” during his first 100 days by demanding to know what the cuts to government spending would be.
The damage, however, was done.
“The very unpopular ‘Congressman’ from Texas, Chip Roy, is getting in the way, as usual, of having yet another Great Republican Victory — All for the sake of some cheap publicity for himself,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media before the vote on Thursday. “Republican obstructionists have to be done away with.”
Mr. Roy said he would vote his conscience and bear the consequences.
“My position is simple — I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it,” he wrote on social media in response. “I’ve been negotiating to that end. No apologies.”
For better or for worse, Mr. Roy got a nod of approval from former Vice President Mike Pence.
“Congressman Chip Roy is one of the most principled conservatives in Washington DC and people across this country are grateful for his stand against runaway federal spending,” Mr. Pence wrote on social media. “We just can’t keep piling trillions in debt on our children and grandchildren.”
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