‘I’m the President and You’re Not’: Trump Tests His Power and Frustrates the GOP
The president has made a series of decisions that have confounded Republicans and are challenging his grip on the party
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President Trump is increasingly relying on his own instincts, making decisions that frustrate Republicans and test his party control.
Trump agreed to a preliminary peace deal with Iran, drawing criticism from Republicans who say it offers Tehran a financial lifeline.
The president delayed his intelligence chief nominee’s confirmation to keep an acting pick, and tied a spying law renewal to a voter-ID bill.
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President Trump is increasingly relying on his own instincts, making decisions that frustrate Republicans and test his party control.
President Trump has delivered the same retort to political allies who have offered him strategic advice in recent weeks, according to people with knowledge of the conversations: “I’m the president and you’re not.”
Seventeen months into his second term, Trump is increasingly relying on his own gut instincts, dismissing the counsel of aides, conservative lawmakers and longtime associates. The result has been a series of decisions that have confounded and frustrated Republicans—heightening fears that voters will punish the GOP in the November elections and testing Trump’s iron grip on the party.
Trump drew the ire of hawkish conservatives and some Republican lawmakers this week when he agreed to a preliminary peace deal with Iran that they argue offers a financial lifeline to Tehran without doing enough to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Reagan is rolling over in his grave,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), who was defeated in a Republican primary earlier this year by a Trump-backed candidate. He argued that the Iran deal doesn’t accomplish the administration’s war aims: “This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
The president also blew up the Senate’s plans to quickly confirm a new intelligence chief and renew a critical spying law, preventing his own nominee from appearing at a confirmation hearing so that his acting pick for the job could serve in the role longer. Trump said he would refuse to sign legislation reauthorizing the spying law, long a priority for his Republican allies in Congress, until lawmakers approve a voter-identification bill that GOP leaders insist doesn’t have enough support to pass.
As he has faced criticism from some in his own party, Trump has made comments in recent weeks that have stunned his political allies, according to people who have spoken to GOP lawmakers and strategists, and provided fodder for Democratic political ads. Trump has said he doesn’t care about the midterm elections. He has played down the effect of high prices on Americans, saying “I love the inflation.” And on Wednesday, he said Iran should be able to keep some of its ballistic missiles after his national security advisers had made destroying Tehran’s ballistic missile capabilities a primary objective of the war.
White House officials said Trump’s off-the-cuff style is one of his political gifts, arguing that it has helped build a base of support that has stuck with him for a decade. Trump’s team knows that he is the ultimate decider on policy, the officials said.
“No President has worked harder or delivered more than President Trump. The results speak for themselves,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said, pointing to his work on immigration, the economy and national security.
Inside the White House, some aides have privately expressed frustrations about Trump’s recent moves. His decision to appoint his housing chief, Bill Pulte, as acting intelligence director, rankled some of the president’s aides, according to people familiar with the matter, many of whom have clashed with Pulte behind the scenes. Trump has in turn expressed frustration with his staff, knocking advisers for discouraging him from talking about his hard-edge immigration policies ahead of the midterms, the people said.
For much of his second term, Trump has commanded unwavering control over his party, with few GOP politicians publicly raising opposition to his moves. But congressional Republicans, some of whom lost re-election bids after Trump endorsed their opponents, are increasingly offering blunt assessments of Trump’s actions.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), who rarely criticized Trump in public, issued a statement Thursday raising objections to the preliminary agreement Trump signed with Iran, saying that it “negotiates away the victories” of the war “in ways that are completely out of step with the President’s goals.”
Trump has privately expressed frustration with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.), citing his inability to pass the voter-ID bill that the president has said is crucial to Republicans’ winning the midterms. Trump has told allies he’s sick of hearing “no” from Thune, but the Senate leader has noted there simply isn’t enough support in the Senate to move the voting legislation.
“The total control that Trump once had over Congress just isn’t there anymore,” said Ron Bonjean, a former spokesman for House and Senate Republican leadership. “His outspoken dismissal over Republican midterm election hopes and legislative demands that would place them in harm’s way of voters this November has dampened the relationship.”
Wales, the White House spokeswoman, said Trump has worked closely with Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), “and he expects all Republicans in the 119th Congress to continue delivering on the America First mandate the American people issued.”
For months, Trump has resisted warnings from Republicans—and some of his own advisers—that the war was worsening the GOP’s political problems. Voters have expressed alarm in polls at high gas prices, which surged after Iran limited traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
When asked last month about the extent to which Americans’ financial situation motivated him to make a deal to end the war, the president replied: “Not even a little bit.”
“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” he said at the time, drawing criticism from fellow Republicans. “I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing—we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
He privately told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he didn’t care about the midterms, according to U.S. and Israeli officials, a statement meant to underscore his commitment to the Iran campaign regardless of the political fallout.
In recent weeks, some of Trump’s advisers have ramped up their warnings, telling the president that global oil stockpiles were dwindling and the window to prevent the reserves from falling to critically depleted levels was closing, according to people familiar with the matter. Oil executives have publicly raised the same concerns.
On Wednesday, Trump’s messaging on the war shifted, in a sign that the warnings had broken through to the president. He acknowledged for the first time that continued war could have led to “economic catastrophe” and that oil reserves were on track to run out in about four weeks. The preliminary deal, he contended, would lead to a rapid economic recovery.
Advisers have publicly expressed relief that Trump is moving to bring the war to a close, but the president is still keeping them on their toes. He unexpectedly decided to sign the Iran deal during a dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, surprising some of his own aides, who had been planning a separate signing event on Friday.
Trump’s decision to delay the confirmation of Jay Clayton, a top federal prosecutor and former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to be the next director of national intelligence is still reverberating on Capitol Hill.
Republican lawmakers thought the Clayton nomination was a workable solution to the fallout from Trump’s decision to appoint Pulte as acting intelligence director. They were moving quickly to confirm Clayton this week so that he could be put in place before Pulte took over as acting intelligence chief.
But Trump began to have second thoughts in recent days, according to people familiar with the matter, after he learned that Pulte, a close ally, likely would have little time to execute far-reaching firings at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence before Clayton stepped in on a permanent basis.
Trump empowered Pulte to make changes at the office, and Pulte has already started moving to implement those plans. He told departing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last week that the agency’s leadership transition would start right away, according to a senior administration official. Pulte has also been holding meetings at the ODNI in Virginia with intelligence officials to discuss his and the president’s plans to slash jobs, according to the official.
On the sidelines of meetings with foreign leaders in France, Trump announced his decision to delay Clayton’s confirmation hearing, keep Pulte in the job on an acting basis and refuse to sign the FISA reauthorization until the voter-ID bill is approved.
Trump said in a social-media post the head-spinning moves “add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country.”
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Appeared in the June 20, 2026, print edition as 'Trump’s Moves Test His Grip On GOP'.
Alexander Ward is a national security reporter covering the White House and State Department for The Wall Street Journal in Washington. Alex’s reporting focuses in particular on the inner workings of the National Security Council and how top players in an administration formulate and execute foreign policy.
Alex was previously the White House and national security reporter at Politico, where he was also the first author of its "National Security Daily" newsletter. Before that, he was Vox's White House reporter covering foreign policy and worked at the Atlantic Council think tank covering national security and military affairs.
Alex has won numerous awards for his reporting and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist along with Politico colleagues for Supreme Court coverage.
In February 2024, Alex published his first book, "The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy after Trump." He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Brian Schwartz is a White House economic policy reporter at The Wall Street Journal's Washington Bureau. Brian previously worked at CNBC as a political finance reporter and had a stint as a journalist at Fox Business. At CNBC, he broke dozens of stories on how money intersects with politics, including pieces on President Biden being pressured to drop out of the 2024 election.
Brian's reporting at the Journal focuses on economic policies.
His story topics range from tax reform to tariffs. His coverage spans across the federal government, including pieces out of the Treasury Department, as well as Capitol Hill.
Natalie Andrews is a White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, covering domestic policy and President Trump's legislative agenda. She joined the Journal in 2014 and began covering Congress in 2017 and did so until 2024, covering two impeachments, the congressional response to the Covid pandemic and numerous election cycles. She focused particularly on House leadership and the dynamics around the speaker races.
Previously, Natalie worked at KSL News in Salt Lake City and for the San Diego Daily Transcript, a business daily. She grew up near Salt Lake City and studied journalism at Utah State University, where she fell in love with hiking and the outdoors. She also earned an M.B.A. from the University of San Diego in 2011.
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