Will There Ever Be A Serious Reckoning Besides A Few Seat Changes In Congress?

There were 300,000 Dutchmen who collaborated with the Nazis

Congressional Republicans seemed concerned when voters started talking about losing social safety net benefits, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Some of those voters are part of the new MAGA coalition Republicans have come to depend on over the last decade. But it wasn’t until billionaires started hemorrhaging serious wealth this week that congressional Republicans started to really panic. With Trump having pushed the stock market into bear territory and the dollar circling the drain, endangering the currency’s role in the global financial system.

Ted Cruz is starting to see an electoral donnybrook for his party next year. A guest on the Verdict podcast, he said “he hopes Trump's tariffs work as leverage to get other countries to quickly lower trade barriers, which could spark an economic boom. But he sees big risks for jobs and inflation… ‘If we're in a scenario 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now, with massive American tariffs and massive tariffs on American goods and every other country on earth, that is a terrible outcome,’ he said. In that scenario, ‘This is the biggest tax increase we have seen in a long, long time,’ he said. The perils extend to the GOP's hold on Congress, he added. ‘If we go into a recession, particularly a bad recess.’”

That’s what a GOP panic sounds like. And Cruz isn’t up for reelection in 2026. But Ben Leonard reporting on the same podcast, wrote that “Cruz is warning about major risks for the American economy and its automotive industry thanks to Trump’s trade war, saying it could result in the biggest tax hike in a ‘long, long time. I’m seeing a lot of Republican cheerleaders reflexively defending what the White House is doing,’ Cruz said on his podcast Friday, but cautioned the administration’s latest actions could ‘hurt jobs and hurt America.’ Cruz added he is ‘not a fan’ of tariffs. The alarm bells from Cruz, a Texas Republican who has called himself Trump’s ‘strongest supporter’ in the Senate, reflects growing unease among Republicans about Trump’s tariff crusade and the impact it could have on prices for consumers and, consequently, the GOP’s political prospects.”

His comments suggest the dam could be breaking among Republicans on this issue— even among those who consider themselves staunch Trump allies— as the economic and political fallout from the president’s trade war crystallizes.

Cruz, for instance, said Friday he spoke the night before to one of the “Big Three” U.S. automakers— generally considered to be GM, Ford and Chrysler— who said that the tariffs could raise average prices of their cars by $4,500. That could begin as early as June, Cruz said, explaining there’s a lag in the supply chain that means prices wouldn’t rise overnight.

“This U.S. car company told me they actually thought foreign car companies would benefit more than they would, because if you send it over here, you pay one tariff, whereas this guys are getting hit on each part that is going over,” Cruz said.

It could also hurt Republicans in midterm elections: “If we go into a recession— particularly a bad recession— 2026 in all likelihood, politically would be a bloodbath,” he cautioned. “The upside could be massive, but the downside could be massive.”

Right now everyone who could stop Trump is too scared to do make any moves. Caitlin Oprysko wrote that “Capitol Hill Republicans, corporate America and White House allies are terrified about what’s next in Trump’s escalating trade war. But they fear Trump’s wrath even more. Republican lawmakers are signaling they’re willing to tolerate the pain for now, despite the economic fallout back home. Lobbyists, who are quietly prodding the same lawmakers to defend their interests, don’t want to have a target on their back— or their clients’. Even some Trump world confidantes, alarmed about the tariffs’ impact, are hoping someone else intervenes.

“There is zero incentive for any company or brand to be remotely critical of this administration,” said a [dumb lobbyists] “It destroys your ability to work with the White House and advance your policies, period.”

An official in the energy industry echoed that sense of fear. “Hearing angst and frustration from all quarters,” the official said via text message, “but no one wants to be first out of the box saying anything negative about Trump’s decision-making.”

The paralysis reflects the broader mood of Trump’s second administration, in which he’s targeted and threatened to destroy institutions that cross him, including law firms, universities and more. With his tight grip on Washington, Trump has faced no meaningful resistance to policies that are upending the global economy, tearing up America’s relationships with its closest allies and making deep, unilateral cuts to the federal government. Leaders have quickly learned that however harmful they think a Trump policy might be, publicly contradicting the president could be worse. Now with the Trump administration doubling down on tariffs and trying to sell the country on short-term pain for long-term gain, it’s unclear what the breaking point will be for officials and lobbyists representing the most-impacted constituencies. 

“There is absolutely a sense that the administration is keeping a list, and no one on K Street wants to be on it,” said one executive at a trade group downtown.

Advocates for affected industries are scrambling to determine how durable the new tariffs will be, wary of coming out forcefully if the administration decides to quickly scale them back. They point to Trump’s swift reversal last month on tariffs targeting Canada and Mexico, which he largely paused amid an uproar from business leaders and even some Republicans.

His policies will never change? Is that so?

…Even on Capitol Hill, which lobbyists were hoping would be a key avenue for influencing the president without provoking his ire, fear is spreading among GOP lawmakers as the market hemorrhages trillions of dollars. But so far, most Republicans are unwilling to call on Trump to back down.

Industry “absolutely will not get back up from Congress” right now, the trade group executive conceded, adding that Republicans are “holding hands jumping off the cliff and hoping that it’s a very short drop.

There have been some cracks in the conference. Earlier this week, four Republican senators voted to help Democrats pass a resolution that would nullify the emergency powers Trump invoked last month to levy 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports. And Sen. Chuck Grassley— a senior Republican whose home state of Iowa stands Thursday that would claw back congressional control of tariff policy. But those measures will likely never make it to the president’s desk.

“Everyone is terrified,” a senior GOP aide said. “But I don’t think anyone wants to cross the president right now.”

A growing sense of defeatism set in Thursday and continued into Friday as Republican senators faced a slew of questions from reporters in real time as the market melted down. A wave of distressed phone calls from industry leaders and constituents in their states only added to their dread.

“He campaigned on this,” one GOP senator whispered as panic stirred in the Senate hallways. “This is just the beginning.”

Yesterday, on the Politicon podcast, James Carville warned about collaborators— as in those in Europe you worked with the Nazi occupiers. “Maybe you need to go in history and see what happened in August of 1944, after Paris was liberated. They didn’t take very kindly to the collaborators. No, it was not a very pretty sight in the streets of Paris. I’m not saying that these people should be placed in pajamas and have their heads shaved, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and spit on. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that, that did happen. These people are a disgrace to the law firms they represent, to the companies that they represent and are supposed to be in self-interest, and they’re a disgrace to the United States and etch their names in the tablet of history for being some of the greatest traitors, appeasers that we’ve seen in the history of our great country... When this is over, there has to be, at a minimum, an intellectual reckoning with this class of appeasers that are here.”