Republicans insist they could eventually restrain Trump and Musk

Aside from Matt Gaetz, the Republican Congress is showing very little interest in checking President Donald Trump’s power right now.

Over the past 24 hours, a handful of once-reluctant Republicans approved of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard’s bids to join Trump’s Cabinet. On top of the mild GOP complaints about the dismantling of the US Agency of International Development and freeze on government spending, free-trading Republicans who warned against a potential trade war with Canada and Mexico are giving Trump plenty of latitude in that area.

With little threat of the GOP Congress stepping in to restrain it, Trump — and Elon Musk, empowered with significant authority to reshape the federal government — have staged a dizzying show of executive-branch dominance over the federal legislature.

Trump’s ability to wield power to start his second term has prompted increasingly loud charges from Democrats that Republicans are too afraid to stand up to him. It’s a line that Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is likely to hear for two more years as he prepares for a reelection bid on the front lines of 2026’s battle for the Senate.

Tillis is throwing the charge right back at Democrats, accusing them of being pliant for former President Joe Biden.

“In the last Democratic administration, which [nominees] did they even raise a concern [about]? Zero. Like, zero. So it’s disingenuous. It’s the same old, tired playbook,” Tillis told Semafor when asked about the idea that he’s rolling over for Trump.

He contended that there will eventually be red lines that the Republican Congress won’t permit Trump to cross, “whether it’s on nominees, or whether it’s on policy. I can see things where Musk — he’s coming up with good ideas — he could go too far. We could say, ‘Great idea. It doesn’t work in a public institution.’”

It hasn’t come to that yet. And Republicans are plainly sensitive to the idea that they are letting legislative power atrophy after charging Democrats with the same misdeed during the presidencies of Biden and Barack Obama.

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., even spoke to Trump directly about Gabbard’s nomination as director of national intelligence, but told reporters Trump wasn’t trying to twist his arm. Young said Trump told him Gabbard’s vote was “important, but he said, ‘You know what, Todd, we’re going to work together on all kinds of other things to Make America Great Again.’”

Republicans’ attitudes may change if voters sour on Trump, but thus far the president has had wide latitude to remodel government. He’s sparked frustration from moderate Republicans like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins but little protest from party leaders.

Still, Tillis isn’t the only senior Republican to insist that they will not let Musk or the executive branch further infringe on Congress’s vaunted power of the purse.

“We do have to really make sure that the spending and the appropriation and the power of the purse remains with the House and Senate,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. “Any encroachment on that, I think we should, as a body, stand up and resist.”

Republicans already concede they will likely need to push through legislation to finalize changes to USAID. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told Semafor that Republicans are quietly critical of undercutting foreign aid development programs but “are afraid to say it. They’re afraid of retribution.”

“I’m surprised that so many people here who have supported foreign assistance programs now suddenly are willing to let them be cut off, to the detriment of security,” said Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. “These are not like turning off a light switch that you can shut it down and start it again.”