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During the 2024 presidential election, when Kamala Harris called Donald Trump a “petty tyrant” or agreed with former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley that Trump was a “fascist,” Republicans called foul. Mitch McConnell, the then-Senate Republican leader, said that it would encourage a would-be assassin to “finish the job.”
But over the weekend, Trump raged against courts that have blocked his numerous executive actions as president, saying on X that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” The quote is reportedly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, though it is unclear whether the French emperor actually said the quote.
No major Republicans pushed back against the comments. This comes despite the fact that Republicans repeatedly filed lawsuits to challenge the Biden and Obama administrations.
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Trump’s words came after the Department of Justice dropped charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams in exchange for Adams’s compliance in enforcing Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda. Once again, there was almost not a whisper from major lawmakers.
The Trump administration also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to give him permission to fire Hampton Dellinger, who leads the office of Special Counsel.
As of right now, there are no signs that Republicans are going to do anything to push back. Last week, the Senate voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard to director of National Intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become secretary of Health and Human Services. Even Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, self-styled moderates who served as major roadblocks in Trump’s first term, went along with the rest of the Senate GOP conference.
This came despite the fact that Gabbard and Kennedy – both former Democrats – staunchly contradict Republican orthodoxy: Gabbard only seemed to find religion on surveillance when she came up for nomination and Kennedy previously defended abortion rights and criticized Republican policies on the environment, but has become a darling on the right because of his anti-vaccine views.
Ironically, McConnell, who ceded the reins of the GOP conference to Majority Leader John Thune, was the sole Republican to oppose both Gabbard and Kennedy’s nominations. He also opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense a few weeks ago.
None of those should be surprising. McConnell is a conventional military hawk who saw Hegseth as an amateur unprepared to lead the Pentagon. His support for Ukraine meant he would never support someone who in the past praised Vladimir Putin and the fact he survived polio as a child meant he could never stomach an anti-vaccine conspiracist like Kennedy.
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Unsurprisingly, Trump responded with vitriol, openly questioning whether McConnell even had polio and questioning his mental competency.
This is not the first time that Trump has attacked a Republican elder statesman so personally. He famously called the late John McCain “a war hero because he was captured” when he kicked off his 2015. And Trump and McConnell suffered a break after the senator refused to help overturn the 2020 election results. That rift would be sealed by the January 6 riot, though McConnell’s decision to acquit Trump paved the way for the president’s return in 2024.
But back in 2015, Republicans almost universally condemned Trump and praised McCain.
This time around, Republicans won’t say a peep about the person who led their conference for 17 years and who arguably cemented the longest-lasting aspect of Trump’s first term: reshaping the federal judiciary.
In the same token, few Republicans, including the most hawkish Republicans, pushed back on J.D. Vance’s speech in Munich, where Trump’s vice president railed not against Russia or threats abroad but against European governments for supposedly repressing free speech and for their immigration policies.
In the past, elder Republican statesmen – the “adults in the room” – would find a way to soothe global fears or find ways to reassure world leaders that they would stick to their global commitments.
But no such cavalry is coming this time.
This is not to say that Trump faces no roadblocks. Democratic attorneys general have repeatedly filed lawsuits against the administration in hopes of slowing down its actions.
But for the time being, expect almost no dissent from within the ranks of Republican lawmakers. And a lack of dissent will equal permission in Trump’s eyes.
