Wake up with the Washington Examiner: Trump’s MAGA members and his challenge to senators

Quad-core legislators

President-elect Donald Trump isn’t returning to the White House without backup. Even with a Cabinet full of loyal followers, there will only be so much the president can accomplish.

That’s where Congress comes in.

In the first installment of our Capitol’s New Crop series, Associate Editor Hailey Bullis introduced some of the names to keep an eye on in the coming Congress. Those members range from experienced local and state officials to political neophytes. They were excited to get to work, and that includes reaching across the aisle if necessary.

However, the factional nature of Washington politics is overpowering. There is a smaller core of new members, some of whom already have some Washington experience, who are coming to town with a singular goal in mind: making MAGA happen.

“Rep.-elects Brandon Gill (R-TX), Brian Jack (R-GA), Addison McDowell (R-NC), and Riley Moore (R-WV) were all endorsed by Trump during their congressional runs and have already started seizing on GOP leadership opportunities,” Hailey wrote for us this morning.

The four men all have strong political ties, ranging from being relatives of political operatives and senators to helping run the first Trump White House.

Now, they’re all relying on each other rather than their friends and family to help move Trump’s agenda forward.

“All four of us, we’re kind of … this new right conservative younger group of folks that are really in alignment — all four of us are, and particularly in alignment with President Trump’s agenda and what I call, kind of the new, new direction of the party,” Moore told the Washington Examiner.

House Republicans were plagued by a small majority for two years that spent as much time fighting with itself as it did mixing it up with Democrats. Prolonged speaker fights — to elect one, to oust one, and then to select a new one — were emblematic of the general dysfunction.

They might have had control of the chamber, but their hands were tied as infighting slowed the legislative process, and a Democratic-controlled Senate would have shot down most bills that made it across the building anyway.

Things are different now. Republicans don’t have a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate, though they’re prepared to lean on their three-seat majority to make Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) squirm.

And the new core of MAGA acolytes say they aren’t interested in petty fights. They want to be taken seriously as legislators, not just bomb-throwers.

“The biggest thing is that we’re looking to execute on the Trump agenda,” Gill told the Washington Examiner. “Our goal is to be able to go back in two years, be able to tell our voters and our constituents that we did the things we said we were going to do in Washington, and we’re looking to be serious legislators and to really get stuff done.”

Click here to read more about Trump’s new allies bringing a new perspective to the House.

Stocked Cabinet

The names Trump has announced as the key lieutenants staffing his administration are all loyal to Trump the man, though that’s where the similarities end for some key picks.

Supporting the president as a prerequisite for rising to power in the GOP has been common knowledge since 2016. Advisers and secretaries who wanted to break with Trump during his first administration were removed as swiftly as he could act and weren’t invited back into the fold.

Trump appears to have a clearer policy vision than he did in 2016, now that he is familiar with how Washington works and knows, roughly, what he can do on his own and when he needs assistance. But policy preferences are taking a back seat to the loyalty question for some of his appointees, shocking rank-and-file members and putting him on a collision course with senators, who need to give them their blessing before they can go to work.

Congressional Reporter Ramsey Touchberry has taken a look at three of Trump’s most controversial nominees for important roles in his administration. While personal scandal and questionable character sunk the nomination of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, senators’ quibbles with the conduct of some of his other picks will likely be secondary to their doubts about whether effective conservative policy can break through with the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Scott Bessent running key agencies.

Kennedy is a Democrat-turned-independent who hasn’t joined the Republican Party or recanted his strong abortion-rights stance. Anti-abortion activists are queasy about Kennedy’s own sexual scandals and the thought of him pulling the levers of the largest healthcare system in the country with the Department of Health and Human Services.

“There’s no question that we need a pro-life HHS secretary, and of course, we have concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, recently told Ramsey. “I believe that no matter who is HHS secretary, baseline policies set by President Trump during his first term will be reestablished.”

Chavez-DeRemer is a pro-union Republican from a blue state who just lost reelection. She was one of just three Republicans to vote for the PRO Act. Senators interested in shoring up right-to-work laws, allowing states to make it illegal for unions to require membership, are wary about the pick.

Bessent’s skepticism about tariffs appeared to be an odd choice for the man who has said tariffs might be the “most beautiful word” in English while on the campaign trail. Hawks in the Senate see Trump’s tariff plan as the best way to counter China, a promise Trump made during his first term and said he will prioritize going forward.

The Senate gave Trump a quiet rebuke when offices let it be known they weren’t going to support Gaetz taking control of the Department of Justice. His allies in Congress might cast a questioning eye on other Cabinet selections, but if Trump put aside policy differences to reward loyalty, senators are likely to do the same.

Click here to read more about how Trump is testing the Senate as he prepares to return to Washington.