President Donald Trump’s trance-like grip on the Republican Party appears to be slowly slipping under the sheer weight of scandals that have dogged his second stint in the White House to date, Politico reports.
The chief signs of mounting discontent within GOP ranks include growing support for greater transparency over the Jeffrey Epstein files and his apparent inability to rally support for a nationwide redistricting effort, according to Politico.
The outlet also points to the November election defeats, with strong Democratic statewide victories, as momentum-changing for the seemingly unknockable Trump, 79.
As the president faces mounting public scrutiny over his historic relationship with the disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Epstein, Trump has notably failed in his efforts to pressure top Republican representatives into following his lead.
Even MAGA stalwarts, such as Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, resisted calls to drop support of a House initiative to pressure the Justice Department into releasing fresh documents on the long-running scandal.
In the Senate, top Republicans have held fast against Trump efforts to abolish the filibuster—the rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation.
The MAGA leader’s problems were mirrored at state level in Indiana, where several key officials bucked White House pressure to support a bid to redraw congressional boundaries to the party’s advantage in future elections, Politico said.
The Wall Street Journal has also reported on the apparent knocks in Trump’s armor. The newspaper noted Trump’s spectacularly messy public split from Rep. Greene as a clear sign of the president’s growing non-alignment with the MAGA base.
Greene, who had otherwise long proven herself one of the president’s staunchest defenders, has sparred with senior GOP leadership over a variety of issues, from nuclear strikes against Iran to foreign aid and healthcare subsidies. But it was the Epstein documents that finally saw the president cut ties with her last week.
“I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, of the Great State of Georgia,” the president posted in a vitriolic Truth Social diatribe Friday. ‘All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”
For Mike Madrid, a former California Republican Party’s political director, now turned Trump critic, the president’s split with Greene is only the latest sign of mounting divisions within the party. “There’s an unprecedented split in Donald Trump’s base,” he told WSJ. “It’s a sign that even Donald Trump is not immune to the physics of politics, which is that a lame-duck leader is going to start to see people abandon him.”
Political analyst Charlie Cook, however, was quick to warn against overhyping any signs that Trump is losing his magic touch. “They’re kind of stepping out, but gingerly,” he said in an interview with the newspaper. “It’s a change from what we’ve seen, but I’m not going to hold my breath to see Republicans thumbing their noses at him with any regularity.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on this story.
“President Trump remains the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party, and he has incredible working relationships with party leadership and the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the WSJ. “On issues like the filibuster, he makes his positions clear and has robust conversations with his counterparts privately and publicly.”
The post Trump’s Control of His Own Party Rocked by Humiliating Failures appeared first on The Daily Beast.
