On Thursday, the House failed to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a bill championed by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to secure clean drinking water for her constituents. This came even though just last month, the bill had passed unanimously.
This time, only 24 Republicans voted for the initiative.
“This is a bill that, in policy, no one in that chamber disagreed with,” Boebert told The Independent in a gaggle after the vote on Thursday. “This was purely political, and it’s very unfortunate, but I’m not taking it out personally on anybody. I’m going to use my frustration as motivation to continue to get this over the line.”
While it’s not clear why exactly Trump vetoed the legislation, it’s hard not to see that Trump hung Boebert, one of his most enthusiastic supporters in the House, literally out to dry after she joined the discharge petition to force a vote to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
It reveals the double-bind Republicans face: as the president becomes increasingly unpopular or when he directly defies their local interests, they have to find ways to break with him. But his megaphone and sway on the Republican electorate remains tight.
On Thursday, five Republicans joined with Senate Democrats on a War Powers Act resolution to rein in any future activity in Venezuela. One of the Republicans, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, insisted to reporters that he did not mean to cross the president.
“This is all about going forward, if the president should determine, ‘you know what, I need to put troops on the ground in Venezuela, I think that wouldn’t require Congress,’” Hawley said.
It didn’t work. Later that day, Trump lit into Hawley and his cohorts –Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Todd Young of Indiana –for voting for the resolution, saying they “should never be elected to office again.”
It’s a bold statement, considering Collins is up for re-election in what will be a tough race and her occasional votes with Democrats are the only thing that keeps her afloat in liberal New England.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who is up for re-election this year, told reporters not to make too much of it.
“I think you should check back with him and see how he feels in a few days,” he told reporters on Thursday. “But obviously, he was irritated with that outcome. I think it was a bad outcome myself, because I think people are interpreting this as somehow a rebuke.”
Cornyn needs to stay on Trump’s good side to survive a bruising primary against Attorney General Ken Paxton and avoid Trump endorsing the super-MAGA Paxton.
That might give Republicans less of an incentive to vote on a War Powers resolution pushed by Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego to prevent Trump from putting troops on the ground in Greenland.
The only Republican who seems comfortable lighting into Stephen Miller, the most vocal champion of the idea, is retiring Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
