Donald Trump had a miserable day in Congress on Thursday. In the final analysis, the impact of it will be limited. But considered over a larger timeline, it represents the shrinking of a vindictive president into irrelevancy, which paradoxically makes him even more dangerous.
We’ll start in the Senate, where five Republicans crossed over to support a war powers resolution that would block any funding for military operations in Venezuela. This is the first of what will likely be several war powers resolutions over other threatened nations and territories like Greenland, Cuba, and Colombia. The final vote was 52-47, with Republican Sens. Todd Young (R-IN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) joining all Democrats. While this was a procedural vote, it ensures a final vote for passage to block the funding. (Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted to advance the resolution but may vote against final passage, but with five Republicans in support, that won’t matter.)
The practical implication of this is limited. The House isn’t as likely to pass a war powers resolution; it narrowly rejected two similar measures in December. Even if that shifted, the president would almost certainly veto the resolution, and there isn’t a two-thirds majority available to override that.
But there’s still obvious importance to a Republican rejection of military operations in Venezuela mere days after the abduction of Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Trump has floated indefinite control of the country and its oil wealth, but congressional support begins at a low ebb and will likely wither more. Trump knows this, lashing out at the five Republican senators who defied him and saying they “should never be elected to office again.” That includes Collins, who is the most threatened Republican incumbent in the Senate in this year’s midterms and who holds one of the keys to Republican Senate control. If the vote was so irrelevant, Trump wouldn’t be having such a loud temper tantrum.
The House followed suit on Thursday with their own breaks with Trump. First, a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies passed by a count of 230-196. Seventeen Republicans supported it, nearly double the nine who voted to advance the bill in a procedural vote on Wednesday. This wasn’t even supposed to be on the House floor, but a discharge petition went around the Republican leadership when four Republican rank-and-file members moved to support it. A straight extension is probably not getting past a Republican filibuster in the Senate. But it puts pressure on the Senate to come up with their own solution.
A bipartisan handful of senators who like to be in reporter scrums are claiming progress on a compromise; my sources tell me that is more rhetoric than reality. But the fact that senators want to look busy while millions of people see their health insurance premiums double shows the extreme political salience of this issue. With the House on record supporting a straight extension, the Senate will need to respond. Trump is already trying to position himself to get something done, telling senators to be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, a restriction on federal spending for abortion that is often a hurdle in any health care–related legislation. The result is either that Democrats forced Republicans into a deal that saves people thousands of dollars on their health insurance or Republicans callously ignored that pain; either way, it reflects badly on the GOP politically.
Next, the House voted to override the president’s vetoes of two more broadly bipartisan bills. One involved greater control over a section of the Everglades for the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida, and the other authorized funding for a water pipeline in Colorado. Both were vetoed due to either revenge against a state (in the case of Colorado, which has refused to release Tina Peters on state charges after a presidential pardon that has no effect over state law) or a sovereign tribe (the Miccosukee have opposed Trump’s immigration policies and particularly the installation of the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center near their land), not the substance of the bills.
The House did not override either bill; the Miccosukee bill received a 236-188 vote, and the Colorado bill 248-177-1. (Veto overrides require a two-thirds vote for passage.) But 24 Republicans crossed the aisle to override the Miccosukee veto, and 35 did the same for the Colorado veto. This obviously has no real-world impact, but House Republicans have been such lapdogs for Trump that even the slightest deviation, even on a free vote, is notable.
In addition, the House supported a three-bill appropriations “minibus” to fund federal agencies, with overwhelming margins. The bills do not have the kind of guardrails that would be needed to prevent Trump from imposing his own brand of shutdowns, though I suppose they reduce the chaos somewhat.
On top of this, today the Supreme Court will issue opinions, and it has been strongly rumored that this will include a rejection of Trump’s emergency tariffs. The administration again has a safety valve here, one they’ve been planning for months: They can use other authorities to impose short-term or otherwise limited tariffs on other nations or particular products. But denying the unilateral and unlimited authority will constrain Trump’s proclamation-heavy governmental style in the second term, and cabining presidential emergency powers with this president in charge is a straightforwardly good thing. The news that the Supreme Court may take its time with any changes to the Voting Rights Act so that it would not affect the 2026 midterms is also a blow to Trump’s election-rigging strategy.
This is just a snapshot in time. Trump has more than three years left in office, and modern presidents have a terrifying amount of power at their disposal. We’ve seen that this week in Caracas in real time. But to be this unloved, to have the political rank and file in his own party comfortably defy him repeatedly, signals that Trump’s high-water mark is long past, and some new and different future is ahead.