The Indiana state Senate’s vote against a new congressional map that President Donald Trump had pressured it to adopt is one of the most extraordinary examples to date of Republicans standing up to Trump.
But it wasn’t even the only example Thursday.
Indeed, Trump got a series of brushback pitches in his efforts to dominate his party and American politics.
The day seemed to reinforce the emerging limits of Trump’s ability to force others to bow to him, as his poll numbers drop and he trends towards lame-duck status.
Indiana rejects redistricting pressure
Indiana was certainly the biggest example. Despite months of pressure from Trump and his allies, those Republican state senators made a statement. A majority (21) of them (40) actually voted against Trump’s position, defeating the map pretty resoundingly.
They were facing the president’s promises to unseat them in primaries, pressure from Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson and a large number of physical threats. (Law enforcement officials have not linked the threats to any group or campaign.)
In other words, these Republicans would have known precisely the potentially severe costs of their votes — and a majority of them still voted against Trump.
The vote was also significant in another way: It might have put a nail in the coffin of Trump’s big redistricting push. Without gaining two favorable districts in Indiana (as the map proposed), Trump’s bare-knuckle push for states to gerrymander in the middle of the decade to help the GOP next year looks to be fizzling.
Republicans might gain an advantage in a handful of seats, but it’s looking more and more like it will be pretty close to a wash.
Failure to indict James (again)
But we shouldn’t lose sight of the other big developments that went against Trump on Thursday.
In Virginia, the Justice Department failed for a second time to secure a re-indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James. The two failed attempts have come after a judge dismissed an initial indictment because the US attorney who secured it wasn’t serving legally.
Just to emphasize: This is not normal. In a full year between October 2012 and September 2013, federal grand juries rejected indictments only five times nationwide – out of 165,000 cases. They’ve now done it twice in the James case alone.
All of this comes after another grand jury also rejected a charge against former FBI Director James Comey, another of Trump’s targets for retribution, in his initial indictment.
The emerging picture seems to confirm just how thinly constructed the allegations in Trump’s retribution campaign are. And the whole thing, much like his redistricting effort, looks like it could be fizzling because an institution — in this case, the criminal justice system — isn’t bowing to his will.
More GOP lawmakers break with Trump
The story is similar with Trump’s efforts to target Democrats who warned military service-members about the Trump administration potentially giving illegal orders. Trump accused a half-dozen Democrats like Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona of seditious and even treasonous behavior, and he even invoked the death penalty.
But Trump’s retaliation efforts there also suffered a major blow Thursday. After the Navy delivered a report on Kelly that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had requested, Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker signaled to CNN that there was no there there.
The Mississippi Republican said it wasn’t appropriate for the military to even try to punish Kelly, much less sanction him for sedition or treason.
And Indiana wasn’t even the only legislature to deliver Trump a rebuke on Thursday. So too did the US House, where 20 House Republicans voted to overturn Trump’s executive order that stripped federal workers of collective bargaining rights.
While the legislation appears unlikely to become law, it’s rare for Republicans to vote so directly against something Trump wants or has done. And those voting against him weren’t just moderates.
And finally, there’s another key debate in Washington where lawmakers appear to be on a very different page from Trump – and don’t seem to be moving, despite his efforts.
News broke Thursday that Trump was nominating Lindsey Halligan, who was disqualified in the James and Comey cases, to be confirmed as US attorney. Her confirmation would give her power to seek these kinds of indictments for Trump.
There’s a big problem, though: Under its longstanding “blue slip” rule, the Senate doesn’t confirm nominees like her unless they have the approval of senators in the state at issue. And Virginia has two Democratic senators who will not give Halligan such approval.
Trump’s been waging a longstanding pressure campaign to get Senate GOP leadership to scrap this rule, which he also re-upped Thursday on social media.
But his renewed push was met with a pretty quick dismissal by key Republicans. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there are “way more Republican senators who are interested in preserving that [rule] than those who aren’t.” Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, meanwhile, suggested the real problem was that the White House wasn’t sending him enough nominees for judiciary posts. “ATTN WH; SEND MORE NOMS,” the Iowa Republican posted on X.
The episode encapsulated an emerging trend with Trump in which he seems to just throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.
But that doesn’t seem to be serving him as well anymore, particularly as institutions and even his fellow Republicans summon some willpower and courage to resist him.
And Thursday was a pretty bad day for Trump on that front.
