Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, we explore the roundabout method Republican members of Congress are using to denounce policies from President Donald Trump they disagree with. Along those lines, Kristen Welker dives into some recent cracks in the GOP’s support for Trump’s agenda abroad.
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— Adam Wollner
Programming note: We are off next Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We’ll be back on Tuesday.
Republicans criticize Trump’s policies without going directly at him
By Matt Dixon, Julie Tsirkin and Sahil Kapur
Republicans have found a way to disagree with President Donald Trump’s ideas without actually disagreeing with him.
There has been a recent uptick of Republicans using the rationale that it’s not Trump making unwise decisions — it’s that he’s received “bad advice” or is not actually serious about some of his most high-profile policy proposals.
Given the solid grip he’s had on the party for the past decade, direct criticism of Trump is a third rail of modern Republican politics, which has been on full display during his second term. Over the past year, Trump has proposed initiatives that have seemingly been at odds with conservatives and his own MAGA base, leaving them to blame external forces for him steering off course.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has said Trump has gotten “bad advice” on issues ranging from a proposed U.S. takeover of Greenland; repeated attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell; criticisms of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on approving judicial nominees; and the pardon of Jan. 6 rioters.
“The president has been given bad advice, and whoever gave him bad advice should probably not be in that role,” Tillis told NBC News last week of Trump’s Greenland pronouncements. (More on that below.)
Earlier this year, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., directly blamed Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro for the plan to implement across-the-board tariffs.
“Yeah, it’s not the president,” Paul said in April. “I mean, Navarro is a protectionist. He thinks that tariffs are good and that trade is bad, and so he’s wrong on the issues.”
Over the summer, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, told NBC News that he thought the president shouldn’t have named Powell as Fed chair in 2018. But, he added, it wasn’t Trump’s fault.
“Sometimes you make bad decisions and are given bad advice,” Moreno said. “And President Trump was obviously given bad advice by somebody he trusted.”
And as Trump has recently embraced some economic policy proposals that would usually come from progressives, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he thinks Trump is being steered in the wrong direction.
“And so, you know, he may be getting advice on some of those issues, like, for example, the 10% cap on credit cards,” Thune said yesterday. “Don’t know where that came from. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer.”
Potential clashes between Congress and Trump loom on foreign policy
Analysis by Kristen Welker
President Donald Trump‘s foreign policy moves dominated the headlines this week, from his suggestions the U.S. could act in Iran, his meeting with Venezuela’s opposition leader, and his continued push to acquire Greenland.
One key dynamic to watch moving forward is what oversight role Congress could play, as some Republican lawmakers begin to voice concerns about the president’s actions abroad. While Republicans remain broadly supportive of Trump’s foreign policy agenda, a few cracks in support raise questions about whether the first major clash between Congress and the president could be coming soon.
A congressional delegation is currently on the ground in Denmark amid Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland. The group includes two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Murkowski told NBC News’ Ryan Nobles and Frank Thorp in Copenhagen that “support in Congress to acquire Greenland in any way is not there.”
A few Republicans have also pushed back on the prospect of U.S. military action in Iran amid widespread protests.
“I don’t think that U.S. military involvement is appropriate at this time,” Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., told reporters this week, according to NBC News’ Kyle Stewart.
It’s not clear if Trump has made a decision to take action on Iran. I asked the president that question when I spoke briefly with him yesterday and he said, “I’m not going to tell you that.” But Trump added, “we saved a lot of lives” on Wednesday, an apparent reference to his claim that the Iranian regime has stopped killing protesters and halted some planned executions.
The president also touted how he was able to convince two Republican senators to oppose the resolution aimed at preventing him from using military force in Venezuela without congressional approval. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., voted against the resolution after initially voting to advance it last week, allowing Vice President JD Vance to cast the tiebreaking vote to block it.
The co-sponsors of the Venezuela war powers resolution, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will be joining “Meet the Press” on Sunday for an exclusive joint interview as part of our “Finding Common Ground” series.
🇬🇱 Related: Trump says he could impose tariffs on countries that oppose his goal of acquiring Greenland, by Rebecca Shabad
🗞️ Today's other top stories
- 🩺 Obamacare watch: Senate negotiations aimed at striking a bipartisan deal to revive expired funds under the Affordable Care Act have fizzled. Read more →
- 🗺️ Redistricting roundup: Virginia’s Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a constitutional amendment to pave the way for a mid-decade redistricting push, sending it to voters for final approval. Read more →
- 🗳️ With friends like these: Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., isn’t up for re-election until 2028, but that isn’t stopping his onetime progressive allies from accelerating their effort to challenge him in a primary. Read more →
- 🗓️ Eye on 2028: A handful of states are making bids to hold early Democratic presidential primaries, as the national party gets set to remake its nominating calendar. Read more →
- 🪖 From combat to Congress?: Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., endorsed the surgeon she credits for saving her life in Iraq for a House seat in New Jersey. Read more →
- 📰 Read all about it: The Defense Department will overhaul Stars and Stripes, the independent Pentagon-funded newspaper covering the U.S. military. Read more →
- 🇵🇷 Pardon me: Trump pardoned former Puerto Rican Gov. Wanda Vázquez Garced, who was accused of participating in a bribery scheme. Read more →
- 🏗️ Extreme makeovers: While Trump has criticized the multibillion-dollar renovation of two of the Federal Reserve’s buildings in Washington, D.C., he’s pursued his own costly, controversial project: the demolition and construction of a new East Wing of the White House. Dareh Gregorian digs into how the two projects compare.
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Owen Auston-Babcock.
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