What It Takes

Access Hollywood

Over the entire Trump era, we kept wondering what happened to the Republican Party.  After all, Trump could have been stopped in 2016, when the Access Hollywood tape became public.  Then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican leadership could have said, we are withdrawing our nomination for Trump, and going with the former Republican Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.  It was definitely a subject “on the table” in early October.  They might have lost the election, but they would have ended Trump.

But they didn’t.

The Perfect Call

They could have voted for the impeachment resolution against Trump at the end of the first Administration.  After all, he did tell President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to give him “dirt” on prospective opponent Joe Biden, in return for hundreds of millions of US aid.  It wasn’t “the perfect call” contended by Trump.  He used government money for political coercion. 

But they didn’t.

The Insurrection

Or, they could have voted for the second impeachment.  That one was a “slam dunk”.  The President sent the mob to Congress, to these same Congressmen and Senators. He tried to use that mob force to make them deny the 2020 election results.  Clearly, many Republican Senators wanted to vote for conviction, as that could have barred Trump for running for future office.  

All they needed was the “cover” of the Majority Leader, still Mitch McConnell.  Instead, McConnell chose to use as a “fig leaf” a questionable legal theory that Congress couldn’t impeach someone who no longer held the office (making it easy to avoid consequences by simply resigning).  As many as seventeen Republican Senators followed McConnell’s lead, and would have followed the other way if the Majority Leader had chosen to vote for conviction. 

But they didn’t.

The Pass

Instead, McConnell scolded Trump after the vote, and suggested the Courts could hold him accountable.  But when Jack Smith and the Justice Department tried to do exactly that, Chief Justice John Roberts instead gave Trump, and the office of the Presidency, broad immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts”.  

Instead of the Courts dealing with criminality, they wrote a giant “get out of jail free” card and handed it to Trump.  They gave him a “pass” for the January 6^th Insurrection.  They could have required him to stand trial for his acts.

But they didn’t.

Breaking Point

But this week, perhaps for the first time in the Trump Era, the Republicans in Congress found their missing courage.  Trump finally reached the “bridge too far”, even for his sycophantic members of the House of Representatives.  What was this first “breaking point”?  

The Trump Administration wants to create a 1.776 Billion Dollar slush fund to “pay-back” victims of what they call Democratic Administration “lawfare”.  What it really means, is that those who committed crimes in the name of Trump and MAGA, already convicted in court, then pardoned from Federal prison by Trump; can now get cash for their troubles.  It’s a Trump slush fund, run by Trump appointees, with no oversight by the Congress at all.  

For those who grew up on “Schoolhouse Rock” era, where Congress creates the laws (and funds the government) and the President executes it, this “1776 Fund” is completely done through executive orders.  The Treasury will transfer the money to the Justice Department.  Congress has no say.

If past is prologue, there might have been some Republican “insider” grumbling, and Democrats might have screamed, but Congress would let it go.

But they didn’t.

Ducking Courage

The week Senate Majority Leader John Thune pulled the partisan “reconciliation budget” from the Senate floor, for two reasons.  First, Democrats might force an amendment requiring Republicans to actually vote on the 1776 Fund.  And if that happened, Thune didn’t have the votes to get either that amendment, or the whole budget, to pass.  (By the way, Thune already had to remove the $1 Billion addition for the Trump “Ballroom”).  

Senate Republicans aren’t willing to let the Fund go forward.  Trump thought they’d fall in line, no matter what. But, even MAGA loyalist Ron Johnson of Wisconsin called it a “Galactic Mistake”.  They all could have ducked, and let Trump have his fund.

But they didn’t.

And in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson did what he always does when faced with a “rebellion” within his own Party.  He took his ball, and went home.  Johnson recessed the House early, and sent them off for the Memorial Day holiday. They weren’t voting on the 1776 Fund, but they were about to vote on a War Powers Resolution on the Iran War.  And Trump (and Johnson) were going to lose that vote.  Enough Republicans in the House are fed up with Trump’s war, that they were willing to join Democrats to vote against it.  

Johnson had only one way to stop it – send them home.  So he did.

Don’t get your hopes up.  Like just defeated Republican Tom Massie of Kentucky, most Republicans in the House and Senate will still support Trump, ninety percent of the time.  And, again like Massie, they know that a high profile stand against Trump might cost them their seat.  But there is safety in numbers.  And enough of them have joined together, that they have the “cover” from Trump retribution that they need, to actually show some courage.

Now, at least, we know what it takes.