{"id":23027,"date":"2026-05-20T12:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-may-regret-his-revenge-tour\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:02:09","slug":"capitol-agenda-trump-may-regret-his-revenge-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-trump-may-regret-his-revenge-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Trump may regret his revenge tour"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump notched more wins Tuesday in his revenge campaign against Republican lawmakers who\u2019ve crossed him. But his victory lap may be short-lived.<\/p>\n

In another stunning display of the president\u2019s electoral power, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday night to Trump\u2019s favored candidate, just days after the president\u2019s sway knocked Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy out of his re-election race.<\/p>\n

Trump on Tuesday also officially put Texas incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in his crosshairs by endorsing his primary challenger, scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, ahead of next week\u2019s run-off in that state.<\/p>\n

But several congressional Republicans are worried the president\u2019s payback whims will cost the party control of the Texas seat as the GOP fights to retain the Senate. And some Republicans may be more willing to gum up Trump\u2019s agenda after watching their colleagues, or themselves, get picked off by his hardball tactics.<\/p>\n

\u2014 TEXAS IN TROUBLE:<\/b> Trump\u2019s long-awaited announcement backing Paxton over establishment Republicans\u2019 preferred pick of Cornyn was met with shock and dismay<\/a> among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Many of them now fear that keeping that Texas seat will be a more expensive and potentially futile endeavor.<\/p>\n

Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was \u201csupremely disappointed\u201d by Trump\u2019s decision, which she said \u201cputs that seat in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats quickly seized on Paxton\u2019s likely nomination to say the party has a chance to win a Texas Senate race for the first time since 1988.<\/p>\n

Rep. Ro Khanna told Blue Light News matching up Democratic nominee James Talarico with Paxton would create a \u201cperfect storm\u201d for Democrats, who already saw an opening given Talarico\u2019s relatively broad appeal, massive fundraising haul and the political headwinds Republicans face.<\/p>\n

\u2014 A DEFIANT CASSIDY:\u00a0<\/b>Trump\u2019s primary retribution may also embolden lawmakers facing his wrath to hand the favor back to him.<\/p>\n

Since losing his primary to Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, Cassidy has both publicly opposed funding in the GOP-only reconciliation bill for Trump\u2019s ballroom project and voted to rein in the U.S. military conflict in Iran (more on that below).<\/p>\n

Murkowski said the president\u2019s campaign against incumbents is \u201cunprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though Bill Cassidy lost his primary, he is still a voting member of the Senate until January,\u201d Murkowski said. \u201cThere are still many, many weeks \u2014 many months \u2014 to go before the election. And this president is going to have to continue to deal \u2014 and work with and partner with or battle with \u2014 this group of lawmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he doesn\u2019t think he needs us. But I don\u2019t know, last time I checked, the laws don\u2019t just appear before his desk to sign. The funding just doesn\u2019t come,\u201d Murkowski added.<\/p>\n

Also Read: Donald Trump\u2019s GOP revenge tour is complete<\/a><\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 TRUMP’S BALLROOM FUNDING SUPPORT WANES: <\/b>A critical mass of Senate Republicans are publicly objecting to spending taxpayer money on a White House ballroom project. Sens. Cassidy, Murkowski, Thom Tillis<\/b> and Susan Collins<\/b> have all raised concerns about the ballroom security funding, possibly enough to eject the provision<\/u><\/a> from the GOP\u2019s fast-moving immigration enforcement bill. And several senators are privately opposed, according to five people granted anonymity to disclose private deliberations.<\/p>\n

\u2014 SENATE WAR POWERS VOTE DEALS BLOW TO TRUMP: <\/b>Senators voted Tuesday to advance legislation to rein in Trump\u2019s military action<\/a> in Iran, handing a surprise victory to Democrats. The legislation will need to clear several more steps before it can pass, giving Republicans opportunities to kill the measure in the coming days. But Democrats picked up another GOP defector in Cassidy, who supported the move to limit Trump\u2019s power just days after the president\u2019s efforts sunk his re-election campaign.<\/p>\n

Liz Crampton, Andrew Howard, Connor O’Brien and Jordain Carney contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump notched more wins Tuesday in his revenge campaign against Republican lawmakers who\u2019ve crossed him. But his victory lap may be short-lived. In another stunning display of the president\u2019s electoral power, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary Tuesday night to Trump\u2019s favored candidate, just days after the president\u2019s sway knocked Louisiana Sen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}