Is The GOP Turning On Trump? Inside Congress’s ‘Slow’ Revolt

WASHINGTON — Walking out of the Capitol late one night last week, Herb Conaway had notched a legislative win — a rarity for a junior lawmaker in the minority.

Conaway, a Democrat who represents New Jersey’s Third Congressional District, and Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st) folded language into a broader bill to force the Pentagon to turn over information about how the Trump administration could use military bases, such as Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, to hold and then deport immigrants.

“There was a bipartisan agreement that this is not an appropriate use for these military bases. They’re designed to project force overseas, to defend the homeland and to make sure that we are ready,” Conaway said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “To the extent that those operations are interfered with, we think it’s a mistake.”

The Senate is expected to pass the broader bill, with the immigration language included, this week. President Donald Trump has said he will sign the bill, an annual piece of legislation that sets Pentagon policy.

The tacked-on language fits a pattern playing out in Washington, where Republicans control both halves of Congress and the White House, of tepid but notable pushback from Capitol Hill against the president, in particular on topics of foreign affairs and military policy.

This trend arrived as Trump’s overall job approval has slipped, hitting 36% approval, according to a poll by AP-NORC published last week. On foreign policy specifically, Trump’s approval rating is 37%, the survey, conducted in early December of 1,146 adults nationwide, said.

The House voted Thursday to nullify a Trump executive order to end union rights at federal agencies, drawing support from 20 Republicans — including Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Chris Smith (R-4th) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th). Though the Republican-majority Senate won’t pick up that bill, a Trump-backed effort by Republicans in Indiana to redraw congressional maps to their political advantage also crumbled Thursday. “I wasn’t working on it very hard,” Trump told reporters of the Indiana setback.

But the most consistent Republican pushback against Trump, including in ways that will likely stick, has come from within the halls of Congress.

As the Trump administration ratchets up military tensions with Venezuela — the president confirmed in October that he had authorized covert CIA action in the South American country — Congress is about to scrap two legal authorizations the president could use to commence military operations.

Those changes are contained in the broader military bill expected to clear the Senate this week, following a House vote of 312-112. One of those authorizations is from 1991. The other is from 2002.

Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, highlighted that change during floor debate on the legislation, saying “very importantly, we are scrapping the old 1991 and 2002 Iraq war authorizations.”

The bill contains several other items meant to extract information from the Pentagon.

It withholds 25% of the travel budget for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth until he shares his orders approving dozens of missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean, acts critics of the Trump administration have denounced as extrajudicial killings.

It also would force the Pentagon to release video of one of those strikes, a Sept. 2 attack that killed 11 people and has drawn particular scrutiny from Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill.

The armed services committees of the House and Senate, which Republicans hold in their majority, are each investigating the Trump administration’s missile strikes on the shipping vessels.

“[The bill] reasserts some of the authority of the congressional branch, and whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, I think you ought to be happy about that,” said Washington congressman Adam Smith, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Looking to Europe, members of the armed services committees included sections to strengthen U.S. security aid to Ukraine and Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three Baltic nations that border Russia. They also included language to prevent the Trump administration, with its isolationist bent, from removing troops from Eastern Europe and require the Department of Defense to consult Congress before it may pull troops from Europe or South Korea.

Lawmakers within both parties, especially on the wings, applauded the end of the military authorizations, though some said Congress must move swiftly to rein in the administration’s aggression against Venezuela.

“This Congress must stand up against another war in Venezuela,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California. “The American people do not want another regime-change war.”

Decrying “endless wars,” Khanna demanded Hegseth appear before Congress to testify.

Hegseth has defended the vessel strikes as part of an effort to protect the U.S. from drug traffickers.

“Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” he added in a recent online post. In another instance, he wrote, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”

On Dec. 3, a bipartisan group of senators filed legislation to block the U.S. military from attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization.

Congress is scheduled to recess this week before returning in January, heading home for a holiday break, leaving little time before the new year for a vote on that measure.

Previous votes this year to deny Trump war powers have failed in the Senate.

It has been difficult for committees that oversee the U.S. military to receive records they have sought.

“That has been an issue,” Conaway said in the interview. “They call themselves the most transparent administration ever. They use superlatives all the time, and very often the exact opposite is happening.”

He chuckled, dryly. “So, we’ll see. Maybe there will be some epiphany that will occur.”