Donald Trump's push to oust Republican senators who crossed him in primaries is delivering immediate payback, but it's also backfiring in unexpected ways on Capitol Hill.
The strategy has enraged GOP senators watching their colleagues face primary challenges backed by Trump's endorsement and money. The anger runs deep among those who see themselves as potential targets in their own re-election cycles.
Yet the aggressive primary campaign is simultaneously creating a new breed of defiant Republican lawmakers who no longer feel bound by Trump's demands. Some members of Congress have started voting against the president's priorities, calculating that they have little to lose politically if Trump has already shown his willingness to fund primary challengers against sitting Republicans.
The dynamic reflects a fundamental fracture in the Republican Party. Trump's ability to recruit and finance primary challengers gives him extraordinary leverage over individual senators. It's a power he's shown he will wield without hesitation.
But that same willingness to punish party members for disloyalty is paradoxically undermining his influence over the legislative body as a whole. Senators who believe they're already marked for primary opposition are less likely to toe his line on votes. The fear of a Trump primary challenge morphs into a kind of immunity once the threat has been activated.
The result is a Republican caucus simultaneously terrified of and increasingly independent from the president. Trump has won his immediate revenge campaigns, securing scalps and sending messages to wavering allies. The cost, however, is a Congress where his word carries less weight than it did before he began swinging his primary ax.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Trump's getting his pound of flesh in primaries, but he's building a Congress that will bite back."
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