President Trump’s week included high highs, with major election wins in his test of Republican loyalty, and low lows as he attacked Congressional allies and faced legislative defeat.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is resigning. And that is not even the biggest news in Washington this week. NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith is here to help us sort through another wild week in politics and policy.
Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.
KELLY: Start there with the not biggest news of the week. Tulsi Gabbard is leaving the administration. How come?
KEITH: In her resignation letter, Gabbard said that she will step down at the end of next month to spend more time with her husband who was recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. She is a former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate who backed Trump in 2024 and then took on this top intelligence role. She’s been a controversial figure and has been largely sidelined as Trump launched the war with Iran. In his Truth Social post, though, announcing the departure, Trump said she has done a great job.
KELLY: All right. So to bookend this week, the week started with President Trump scoring another win in his retribution campaign against congressional Republicans who have crossed him. How is the week ending?
KEITH: With a lesson about unintended consequences. As you say, Trump backed Republican primary challengers defeated Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Trump proved once again that it is politically perilous for Republicans to cross him. But at the same moment he appeared to demonstrate this huge political power, he created what we on the NPR Politics team are calling a YOLO caucus.
KELLY: OK.
KEITH: YOLO is slang for you only live once, but in this case, it stands for you only lose once. And you have members of Congress with nothing left to lose now newly empowered to stand up to Trump.
KELLY: What does the YOLO caucus look like, practically speaking. What’s it mean?
KEITH: Well, with such narrow majorities in Congress, this relatively small number of Republicans can really stand in the way of Trump’s agenda. And if you combine YOLO caucus members with members who represent swing districts and have political interests in pushing back on an unpopular president, what’s left of his agenda is in real jeopardy. And you saw this week the House had to go into recess early to avoid what could have been an embarrassing vote on a war powers resolution to constrain the president on Iran. And in the Senate, Republicans were pushing back hard on the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund created by the Justice Department to issue payouts to the president’s allies. That pushback threatened to derail what could have been – or should have been – an easy vote on a budget bill. So the Senate went home early, too.
KELLY: Let’s look ahead to a couple things. Next week, Texas Senate runoff. President Trump has inserted himself right in the middle of that race.
KEITH: Yeah. It took him an incredibly long time to endorse in the primary runoff between Senator John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. When he finally did, Trump put his weight behind the challenger, Paxton, who has an opposition research file thicker than a phone book, but who made it clear that he would be a loyal soldier for Trump. If Cornyn ends up losing, we will be watching to see whether he joins the YOLO caucus.
KELLY: Finally, Tam, we’re heading into the long weekend. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr. is taking this weekend to get married. The president is not going.
KEITH: Yeah. It was a viral moment yesterday when the president was asked whether he would be attending his son’s wedding, and Trump seemed unsure. Then the president posted this afternoon that he isn’t going. He also canceled a planned weekend away at his private club in New Jersey. Instead, he said it felt it was important to stay in Washington during this important period of time. We are watching both Iran and Cuba.
KELLY: NPR’s Tamara Keith. Wishing you a happy Memorial Day weekend.
KEITH: To you, as well.
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