The Senate, Once Insulated From Trump, Has Remade Itself in His Image

New York Times

a day ago

When the former Republican senator Jeff Flake of Arizona looks at the soon-to-be former Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, he sees a reflection of himself from 2017, when he decided to retire from the Senate rather than conform to the new party politics embodied by President Trump.
'Thom Tillis could have won re-election,' said Mr. Flake, who became ambassador to Turkey during the Biden administration after leaving the Senate because of repeated clashes with Mr. Trump over the president's character and truthfulness. 'He would have had to change into somebody he isn't — and I felt the same.'
Mr. Tillis's decision not to run for re-election after crossing the president is just the latest example of how profoundly Mr. Trump has reshaped the Senate. Republicans who showed the temerity to challenge Mr. Trump are out, and devotees are in, with Mr. Trump's endorsement looming as a decisive factor in Senate primaries.
Gone are multiple independent-minded Republican senators who were willing to question the president's actions or assert legislative prerogatives. Mr. Tillis was the latest to succumb, after finding himself on the receiving end of a Trump tirade and primary threat over his opposition to the party's signature tax cut and domestic policy bill.
He has plenty of company.
Along with Mr. Flake, the Republican casualty list from the first Trump tenure includes former senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Rob Portman of Ohio, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
Relations with Mr. Trump weren't the sole reason those men bowed out. The difficulty of navigating a MAGA electorate in their home states, the endless demands of fund-raising and frustration with the inability to get much accomplished in Congress all played a role. But Mr. Trump was a major factor, considering that four of them — Senators Burr, Romney, Sasse and Toomey — were among the seven Republicans who voted to convict Mr. Trump on impeachment charges arising out of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol.
Now, the seats of the departed have been assumed by avowed Trump devotees such as Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, who has become a point man for the White House, and Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, both archconservatives from Tennessee. In addition, Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jon Tester of Montana and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania — all Democrats — were defeated and replaced by Trump acolytes Bernie Moreno, Tim Sheehy and David McCormick respectively, deepening the MAGA hold on the chamber.
Mr. Tillis acknowledged that the Senate is no longer a place that celebrates political independence and if he had it do over again, he might not.
'The Thom Tillis who made the decision to run in 2013 probably would not have made the same decision,' he said in an interview.
The evolution of the Senate was vividly illustrated when the chamber took the sweeping domestic policy and tax-cut measure produced by the House and made it more conservative. That is the opposite of how things traditionally go in Congress, where the courtly Senate has more often been the moderating 'cooling saucer' for the House's hotly partisan tea.
Republicans in the Senate, where members are usually jealous protectors of their power over federal spending, also acceded to Mr. Trump's demand to cancel $9 billion already approved by Congress, even though they conceded that the White House was not providing the level of detail they were seeking about the cuts.
Just two Republicans, Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, rejected the spending clawbacks. These days, they are often the only two senators in play as potential Republican defectors, though Mr. Tillis often presents himself as a wild card. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former party leader, who has shown disdain for Mr. Trump, has also cast a few votes in opposition to the president's policies and nominees.
After Mr. Tillis decided to support Emil Bove, a Trump appeals court nominee accused by a Justice Department colleague of encouraging resistance to court rulings, only Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski opposed him. Mr. Trump has erased all but a few doubters from the Senate in his second incarnation as president.
'During the first administration, there was a contingent of Republicans who stood up to him in various ways,' said Ira Shapiro, a former senior Senate aide and an author of three books on the Senate. 'Once he succeeded in this remarkable political comeback, he has basically unified the party in slavish loyalty to him.'
Mr. Shapiro noted that as recently as 2022, when the Senate was under Democratic control, the Senate was able to notch a series of bipartisan legislative accomplishments on gun safety, public works and marriage equality — a type of bipartisanship that would seem almost impossible now.
Even Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican who took over as majority leader this year after getting crosswise with Mr. Trump in the past, has developed a close working relationship with the president as he delivers on the Trump agenda. In a recent social media post, the president flattered the majority leader as 'the very talented John Thune, fresh off our many victories over the past two weeks and, indeed, 6 months.'
Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has fought with Trump in the past, said it shouldn't be surprising how tightly aligned Senate Republicans are with Mr. Trump.
'The president is very strong in the conference,' Mr. Graham said about his fellow Republicans. 'He's very popular with the base. Republican senators usually help Republican presidents. That's the way the system works. If you look at the history of how party majorities serve their presidents, you will find a lot of consistency there.'
Referring to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Graham added, 'It's what L.B.J. was known for.'
But the Senate was also known for strong personalities and formidable politicians who were eager to assert their power and saw themselves as equal partners to the president, with the ability to shape legislation and the right to reject nominees they deemed unfit or unqualified. Over the past few decades, the Senate has become a much more partisan institution, and both parties have seen power shift to the White House.
Mr. Tillis noted that Democrats with an independent streak, such as Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have also left the Senate — though they were not so much run out by the leaders of their party as they were bowing to the reality that they would have a hard time winning re-election. He said he worried that the state of the Senate would discourage capable candidates in the future and further reduce the chamber's historic influence.
'I think it has a more of a dampening effect on those who come behind us,' Mr. Tillis said. 'You do get to a point to wonder if the Senate can be the backstop that it has been in the past.'
Mr. Flake said he shared that view.
'I love the Senate,' he said. 'It typically forces the parties to work together. It pains me to see it the way it is. We are taking out what should be a huge, huge balance of power.'
But he also said it was not tenable for him to find a way to remain, even as supporters encouraged him to try to fight it out.
'I could have said I didn't mean those things I said about President Trump or that his behavior was growing on me,' Mr. Flake said. 'No job is worth that. You have to face your kids and your grandkids.'