{"id":880222,"date":"2025-12-24T00:22:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/its-time-to-govern-and-republicans-in-congress-cant-remember-how\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T00:22:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:22:02","slug":"its-time-to-govern-and-republicans-in-congress-cant-remember-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/its-time-to-govern-and-republicans-in-congress-cant-remember-how\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Time to Govern, and Republicans in Congress Can\u2019t Remember How"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 06: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with House Speaker Rep. …<\/span>
\n WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 06: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) after the National Prayer Breakfast in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on February 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. This is Trump’s first annual National Prayer Breakfast of his second presidency. The bipartisan event brings lawmakers and faith leaders together to pray and discuss religion and fellowship. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images)<\/span>
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\n This is your TPM evening briefing. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Republicans Try to Remember a World in Which Not All Policy Came From Trump<\/h2>\n

We\u2019re seeing a phenomenon play out right now that has cropped up repeatedly during both Trump terms.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the phenomenon is this: in almost all areas of governance, the Republican Party stands for Trump. Nothing more, nothing less. Members of Congress have accepted this rebranding, or left government entirely. Occasionally, Republicans in Congress muster the ability to buck the president\u2019s demands, but that is a rarity. At this point, they have little they want to accomplish that is not a Trump priority.<\/p>\n

This creates an issue whenever an urgent need for a new policy proposal arises, and we\u2019re seeing that on multiple fronts right now. First, Republicans in Congress have spent months flailing, trying to figure out a policy to coalesce behind to deal with increasing Obamacare premiums. This problem was not a surprise. It had loomed ever since the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, extended enhanced premium tax credits through the end of 2025. Democrats shut down the government for a month and a half, demanding a solution to the looming health care price hikes. It\u2019s not the kind of thing GOP health care policy wonks could miss \u2014 yet there are few such people left with influence. Reporting indicates that congressional Republicans have this week finally decided to thrust forth<\/a> a deeply uninspired policy \u2014 or perhaps a set of them<\/a>. It\u2019s still unclear<\/a> they\u2019ll have the votes to pass anything.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the whole fad of \u201caffordability,\u201d a term for cost-of-living issues that has been championed on the left and sent Republicans scrambling since Democrats\u2019 show of strength on Election Day. Trump initially embraced the need to address affordability, then determined it to be a critique of his own government and rejected it. And, so, Republicans have little to offer here<\/a>, too. Trump is president, and he says \u201caffordability\u201d is a Democratic \u201choax.\u201d What can be done? Perhaps more assertions that Trump has already fixed the problem: \u201cWe haven\u2019t probably messaged as effectively as we should,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered Politico<\/a> in an interview, describing the need to redouble efforts to sell Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill, which was signed in July.<\/p>\n

The phenomenon of a GOP that stands for little beyond Trump is nearly a decade old at this point, perhaps older. An early instance of it rearing its head was the floundering GOP effort to \u201creplace\u201d Obamacare in 2017, which ultimately ended with John McCain\u2019s dramatic thumbs down. But it has worsened as the power centers that fuel the Trump-era GOP have become clearer. First, there\u2019s Trump himself. What he wants, he usually gets. Then there\u2019s the billionaires \u2014 increasingly, Silicon Valley billionaires \u2014 who get to splatter their pet policies and authoritarian proclivities throughout administration documents and orders, even when it cuts against Trump\u2019s populist image (for example: Trump promises an executive order to ban state laws on AI will arrive this week<\/a>). Then there is the furious and conspiratorial base, who must be tended by servicing what Josh Marshall has called the nonsense debt<\/a>. This servicing, in Trump II, has taken a new, violent turn, with widespread attacks on immigrants and a clampdown on dissent. Policy documents like Project 2025 channel and interweave each of the threads that make up Trump-era Republican ideology.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s only by accident that these objectives sometimes intersect with the needs of governing a country, leaving Republicans in Congress bereft of policies to draw on when confronted with the challenges of any particular moment. The movement\u2019s intellectuals, such as they are, have been preoccupied with grafting an intellectual and policy framework onto Trump\u2019s whims. In 2020, the party didn\u2019t even publish a platform. In 2024, it did: Titled \u201cMake America Great Again!<\/a>\u201d it promised to bring down prices through slashing government spending, curbing immigration, and opening up more oil and gas drilling \u2014 all ideas the administration has put into effect, and all ideas that have done little for the cost of living.<\/p>\n

In 2016, writer William Saletan suggested that, for the reasons I\u2019ve just described, the GOP was a \u201cfailed state.\u201d<\/a> It still is \u2014 more so now than then. And while there\u2019s some schadenfreude in watching Republican members of Congress attempt, and struggle, to exercise their atrophied policy muscles, there\u2019s little solace in knowing that a failed-state party controls \u2026 the actual state.<\/p>\n

\u2014 John Light<\/em><\/p>\n

Provision to Expand IVF Access To Military Families Is Out\u00a0<\/h2>\n

The text of the National Defense Authorization Act \u2014 which lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have had some last-minute negotiations on over the past week \u2014 was released late Sunday. Despite being included in the earlier House and Senate versions of the annual defense policy bill, a proposed provision that would expand in vitro fertilization coverage for all active service members and their families was left out of the final text.<\/p>\n

That comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was reportedly<\/a> working behind the scenes to get rid of the provision. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) accused the Speaker of being the driving force behind the change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nobody opposing this other than Speaker Johnson and his religious views,\u201d Duckworth told CNN.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president of the United States promised on the campaign trail to make IVF available to all Americans,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t think of a better place to make it available than the men and women who wear the uniform of this great nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tricare insurance, the health care program for service members, currently only covers fertility services for members whose infertility was caused by an illness or injury while on active duty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014 Emine Y\u00fccel<\/em><\/p>\n

Indiana Senate Gets to Work on Trump\u2019s Redistricting Demands<\/h2>\n

The Indiana Senate convened on Monday for a hearing on a redistricting bill that passed<\/a> the Republican-controlled House late last week. Although the proposal had widespread support in the House, it remains unclear whether\u00a0 Senate Republicans will\u00a0 pass the proposal.<\/p>\n

The new map, if approved, could flip two of the state\u2019s congressional seats currently held by Democrats ahead of the 2026 midterms. The fate of Indiana\u2019s redistricting campaign is particularly\u00a0 important for the Trump administration\u2019s larger gerrymandering assault, which appears to be losing steam<\/a>. For months now, Trump has been pressuring red states across the country to redraw their congressional maps as a way to maintain control of the U.S. House in 2026 elections.<\/p>\n

As it stands now, 16 Senate Republicans have publicly expressed their support for redistricting, while 14 have come out against it, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle<\/a>. The chamber needs at least 26 votes to pass the bill assuming all Democrats vote against it, per the newspaper.<\/p>\n

For weeks now, Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray has said<\/a> that there were not sufficient votes in the Senate to approve the gerrymandered map. Following those announcements, President Trump has taken to social media to call out Republicans who have not caved to the administration\u2019s gerrymandering blitz. Those lawmakers say they have faced bomb threats, swatting attempts, and other forms of intimidation.<\/p>\n

Yet in a post<\/a> on Truth Social on Friday, Trump called out the names of the individual senators who have not yet succumbed to the administration\u2019s mounting pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Indiana Senate must now pass this Map, AS IS, and get it to Governor Mike Braun\u2019s desk, ASAP, to deliver a gigantic Victory for Republicans in the \u201cHoosier State,\u201d and across the Country,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Khaya Himmelman<\/em><\/p>\n

In Case You Missed It<\/h2>\n

The mortgage fraud saga continues:<\/strong>\u00a0Trump\u2019s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal<\/a><\/p>\n

Morning Memo<\/strong>:\u00a0Trump DOJ Stonewalls Criminal Contempt Inquiry<\/a><\/p>\n

Unintended consequences<\/strong>:\u00a0Trump\u2019s Attacks on DEI May Hurt Men in College Admission<\/a><\/p>\n

Backchannel<\/strong>:\u00a0Rough Seas Abroad Under Trump II<\/a><\/p>\n

More from the Edblog:\u00a0Team Oligarch Suits Up to Torpedo Netflix\/WBD Merger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s Most Read Story<\/h2>\n

Texas Gets a Pass for a Gerrymandering Free-For-All. Will California Be Given the Same?<\/a><\/p>\n

What We Are Reading<\/h2>\n

Ring camera captures Minnesota ICE raid that leaves 7-year-old without parents, according to family<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 KARE 11<\/p>\n

Mamdani Will Move Into Gracie Mansion<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 The City<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n


\n John Light <\/a>
\n
\n is TPM’s executive editor, based in New York. He previously worked as a producer for Bill Moyers and WNYC and has written for The Atlantic, Slate, Reuters and Grist. <\/span>\n <\/p>\n


\n Emine Y\u00fccel <\/a>
\n
\n is a national political reporter for TPM. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Emine previously worked at PBS\u2019 Washington Week and NewsHour Weekend and NPR\u2019s Investigations Team. Emine double majored in African American studies and Neuroscience at Northwestern University, where she also competed on the varsity fencing team. She later received her master\u2019s degree in Social Justice and Investigative Reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. <\/span>\n <\/p>\n


\n Khaya Himmelman <\/a>
\n
\n is a reporter at TPM, based in New York. She previously covered politics and misinformation for The Messenger, Grid, and The Dispatch. <\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

John Light, Emine Y\u00fccel and Khaya Himmelman
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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