D.C. Press Corps Should Focus on Why - Exactly - GOP Members Fear Trump

Instead of reporting endlessly on unanimous Republican support for radical policies, mainstream media should home in on a handful in Congress now acting at odds with their own records and principles

(Editor’s note: On Sunday, LA Times star political columnist Mark Z. Barabak filed a must-read piece that examines the unspoken and alarming reason some Republican elected officials won’t stand up to Donald Trump: a fear of physical violence against them and their families. Today, press critic Dan Froomkin argues that’s one reason the Beltway press corps should focus more on understanding the behavior of a handful of moderate congressional members).

By Dan Froomkin Press Watch

Conventional wisdom within the Washington press corps has it that there are several – maybe even many – Republicans in Congress who, in their heart of hearts, are not on board with MAGA.

The theory is that there are still moderate Republicans out there, that they are offended by the profoundly non-conservative Trump/Musk agenda – think tariffs, siding with Putin, defunding medical research – and that they march in lockstep with the Trump regime out of fear, not out of principle.

The New York Times, for instance, had a major article earlier this month reporting that the political debate in this country has been chilled because so many people are afraid of speaking out against Trump. The article quoted California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell saying that the particular fear, for Republican members of Congress, is the prospect of violent retribution from Trump’s MAGA followers toward them and their families.

“I’m friends with a lot of these guys, and I had wrongly assumed that what was holding them back from speaking out against Trump was they were afraid of losing their jobs,” Swalwell told the Times. “But what they’re afraid of is their own personal security.”

Conventional Wisdom, II. At the same time, the conventional wisdom about Trump is that he is politically unstoppable – that, with the notable exception of court rulings, there’s nothing blocking him from fully remaking the government in his image, at least until the 2026 midterm elections, at the earliest.

And indeed, the theoretically coequal legislative branch of Congress has thus far been utterly supine.

You hear no complaint from the majority Republicans in either chamber even as Trump and Musk make a mockery of their power to control government spending. And (with help from a handful of Senate Democrats) Republicans succeeded in passing a stopgap budget bill that reflects Trump’s priorities.

But the next steps in the Trump/Musk agenda include making even steeper budget cuts, tearing huge holes in the social safety net, eliminating broad tranches of government, and giving massive tax breaks to the rich.

In the House, those steps will require the GOP – which currently holds a 218 to 213 majority (with four vacancies) – to muster nearly every single vote in favor of what Democrats will accurately describe as cutting Medicaid to pay for billionaire tax cuts.

Do the math, and the Republican majority in the House is so slim that it would take only three GOP defections to stymie the Trump/Musk legislative agenda.

Put Them Together. Put these two pieces of conventional wisdom together, and what do you get?

Trump and Musk are on course to win congressional support for their extreme agenda because a handful of Republican are too terrified for their lives to vote against them.

Alternately, if three House Republicans overcame their fears and stuck to their principles, things would be very different.

That’s a hell of a news story, if you ask me.

But it’s gotten almost no attention.

It would also be great journalism to expose the hypocrisy of those Republicans who are privately anti-MAGA, but publicly supportive.

Reporters would be more likely to write about this topic if Democrats talked about it a lot, which they historically have not.

As it happens, though, a few of them have recently broached the topic.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed it head on during a recent rally in Altoona, Wisc., though his math was a bit off:

“If two Republicans members of the House go to their leader and say ‘You know what? I got a lot of constituents who are on Medicaid. I got a lot of kids who need nutrition programs. And you know what? I am not going to vote to cut Medicaid to give tax breaks to billionaires.’ If two Republican congressmen say that, we have defeated their proposal. That's what we've got to do.”

(He didn’t indicate how.)

There’s evidence that some Democrats are privately but assertively trying to woo Republicans across the aisle. The Baltimore Banner recently reported that newly-elected Rep. Sarah Elfreth of Maryland said at a town hall that she spends “much of her time” trying to persuade Republican colleagues of the value of federal workers.

And at a recent Oregon town hall, Sen. Ron Wyden said he had been reaching out to Republican colleagues, trying to change their minds. He refused to name them, “Because if I name them, the whole MAGA world is going to descend on them,” he said. At which point, someone in the crowd yelled: “SO WHAT?”

Naming Names. Who are the likeliest Republican House members to come out against Trump? I’m not plugged into Congress, but congressional reporters surely know. And in my view, journalists who have been privy to private Republicans confessions that they are voting against their conscience should seriously consider outing them. It’s that important.

Some obvious suspects include Reps. Don Bacon (Nebraska), Mike Lawler (New York), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) – all of whom represent districts won by former Vice President Kamala Harris. Bacon and Fitzpatrick slightly distanced themselves from Trump’s Ukraine turnaround.

I’d look at the Republicans who the 538 web site labeled as moderates, including Reps. Frank Lucas (Oklahoma), Glenn Thompson (Pennsylvania), Steve Womack (Arkansas), Michelle Steel (California), Tom Cole (Oklahoma), Ashley Hinson (Iowa), Mike Flood (Nebraska), David Valadao (California), and Andrew Garbarino (New York).

I’d look at the lowest-scoring Republicans on the Heritage Foundation scorecard, including Reps. John Duarte (California), Mike Kelly (Pennsylvania), Kay Granger (Texas), and Dave Joyce (Ohio).

I’d look at the members of the ostensibly pragmatic Republican Governance Group and of the inaptly named Problem Solvers Caucus.

I’d look at members of the House Appropriations Committee, because if anybody should be furious at having lost control of the budget, it should be them.

I’d look at the veterans in the House, including Rep. Zach Nunn (Iowa), Jennifer Kiggans (Virginia), and John James (Michigan).

And although this is more the job of the opposition than of the media, the next step reporters could take would be to explore what might convince certain members to change their votes – or their party affiliations. What might help them overcome their fears? What could their constituents do to motivate them? Is there some combination of carrot and stick they might be disposed to?

All of that would be good fodder for some conscientious Washington reporters.

Every day they write about some new horror perpetrated by the Trump/Musk regime. How about spilling a little ink on this vaguely plausible way to put on the brakes?

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Image: Reuters.