Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
Republicans know that the demands President Donald Trump is making of them are bad. But true to their cowardly form, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers refuse to follow their conscience and vote against his destructive policies, fearing that Trump will sic his MAGA loyalists against them and tank their careers.
This week, a number of GOP senators voted for a bill that claws back billions of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as foreign aid that Congress had already appropriated—even though the GOP lawmakers admitted they had reservations about the legislation.
Multiple Senate Republicans said the Trump administration did not provide them with enough information on what exactly they will cut from foreign aid funding, which gave them pause, yet not enough pause to vote against the bill.
“When George W. Bush proposed Rescissions back in 1992, he listed specific programs that would receive specific amounts of cuts. And it was a rather thick proposal. But members on both sides of the aisle in both houses … had exact information about what programs would be targeted and where the cuts would be made and by what amount. That is not present in the proposal before us tonight. And that troubles me,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told Fox News’ Chad Pergram on Wednesday. Wicker ignored his concerns and voted for the cuts, though he said he did so “with reservation.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) also said the recissions package didn't have enough specifics to know the exact funding streams the Trump administration wanted to axe, yet he said he was voting for it anyway.
But he did make a toothless threat, saying on the Senate floor, "If we find out that some of these programs that we've communicated should be out of bounds, that advisors to the President decide that they're going to cut anyway, then there will be a reckoning."
I'm sure the administration is shaking in their boots.
And Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who voted against advancing the recissions package to a vote before the full Senate because he said it did not have enough specifics from the Trump administration about what would be cut, turned around and voted for the cuts when it mattered most.
Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the Trump administration has not been specific enough. Yet he shepherded the recissions package through and voted for it, saying their word was good enough for him.
“I don’t disagree,” Thune told reporters on Wednesday of the GOP members who said they needed more specifics. “I think that more specificity would be a good thing, and certainly more detail in terms of what exactly it is that they intend to cut as a result of all this. But I think for the most part, most of our members believe there was enough detail here to make a good decision about whether or not we want to move forward on the package.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who caved earlier this month and voted for the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that will kick millions off of Medicaid despite saying Medicaid cuts were a line in the sand for him, is now desperately trying to reverse the damage he inflicted.
Hawley introduced legislation on Tuesday to roll back some of those cuts. Hawley's bill would nix the changes to Medicaid funding that Republicans passed in the OBBB, and would add to a fund boosting rural hospitals that are dependent on Medicaid to survive.
“President Trump has always said we have to protect Medicaid for working people. Now is the time to prevent any future cuts to Medicaid from going into effect,” Hawley said in a news release. “We should also increase our support for rural hospitals around the country. Under the recent reconciliation bill, Missouri will see an extra $1 billion for hospitals over the next four years. I want to see Medicaid reductions stopped and rural hospitals fully funded permanently.”
If Hawley really didn’t want those Medicaid cuts, he could have stopped them by voting against OBBB, but he was too much of a coward to defy Dear Leader.
Over on the House side, a bunch of GOP lawmakers who purported to care about child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and releasing the information the government had about his crimes voted this week to block the files from being released. Republicans blocked the release as Trump rails against anyone who is criticizing his administration for not releasing the supposed files, going as far as saying that he doesn’t count anyone who is still talking about Epstein as one of his followers.
For example, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who after demanding the release of the Epstein files for years, voted on Tuesday to block the files from release.
Even more insane is that after voting against releasing the files, Boebert said that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—himself accused of sex trafficking minors—should be appointed as a special counsel to get to the bottom of the Epstein case.
“We need a Special Counsel and investigation into this if we aren't provided information. I want answers. Maybe Matt Gaetz can lead it,” Boebert told fellow MAGA conspiracy theorist and Russian asset Benny Johnson.
You can’t make this shit up.
Ultimately, every day Republicans are eager to prove that they'd jump off a bridge if Dear Leader asked them to.
In short, they’re cowards.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
