Senate and House Republicans wanted to use Wednesday to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power. He visited House Republicans, which in many ways is his base of support in Washington.
By the same token, he visited the White House to meet with President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, even though MAGA allies didn’t get their choice of Senate majority leader in Rick Scott, newly-minted Republican leader John Thune will almost never deviate from Trump and will be a much better ally than Mitch McConnell.
“Listen, Donald Trump just won the popular vote for the first time as a Republican in 20 years, and we haven’t done that since 2004,” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri told The Independent. “So that’s kind of a big deal. The Republicans have an obligation now to deliver.”
And Trump wasted absolutely zero time seeing how far they would deliver. After reports in the press, Trump made it official when he announced that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Rubio should have a relatively easy confirmation. Senators tend to be deferential to each other and even when they come from other parties, vote for nominees who come from the Club of 100.
Then, Trump lobbed a grenade when he announced his intention to nominate former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat-turned-Republican who has falsely claimed that the United States funded biolabs in Ukraine. She also met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad even as he has been accused of committing war crimes against his own people.
That alone might give some Republicans pause.
“I don’t know enough about her background to have an opinion,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Independent. But then again, some like Senator Rand Paul told The Independent that he was “Very Excited, very supportive,” calling him a “big fan of Tulsi Gabbard.”
But that only set them up for Trump dropping a tactical nuke when he announced his nomination of Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida to be attorney general.
To say that Gaetz’s popularity with the Republican base is inversely correlated with the level that Republicans on Capitol Hill loathe him would be to understate how much Gaetz repulses Republicans. This is to say nothing about the fact that Gaetz remains under investigation by the House Ethics Committee into whether he had sex with an underage girl.
Nominating Gaetz came out of nowhere for Republicans.
Collins for her part said that she was “shocked” by the nomination. Senator John Cornyn of Texas barely had time to get over losing the leadership race to Thune when he learned about Gaetz.
“ I don’t know the man, other than sort of this public persona,” he told The Independent. Senator Katie Britt of Alabama told The Independent, “I got nothing for you on that one.”
Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has clashed with Gaetz in the past, said he would be in wait-and-see mode with the Florida Republican.
“I’m sure it’ll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation hearing,” he told reporters. “You got to have the credentials, right? So that’ll come out in the in the hearing, but then you have to have the relationships.”
Tillis is up for re-election in 2026 and is perhaps the most vulnerable Republican incumbent senator. Democrats would likely bludgeon him for a vote to confirm Gaetz, especially since Tillis sits on the Judiciary Committee and will question Gaetz during his hearing.
There is something deeper at play here: the vote for Gabbard and Gaetz will also be the ultimate test of loyalty for Republicans. Neither have the credentials and in many ways could compromise and damage the very institutions that they will be charged with leading.
Hawley is correct that Trump won the popular vote, something no GOP presidential candidate has achieved since George W Bush won his re-election in 2004. That gives Trump significant leverage and the ability to wield his base to bend Republicans to his will lest they deviate from his desires.
Trump’s nomination of Gaetz is essentially a dare to cross him and the MAGA faithful. But it might be one that puts them in political peril.