For These Trump Voters, a Rubber-Stamp Congress Is a Key Demand

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/us/politics/trump-voters-congress.html

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Congress is a coequal branch of government empowered to make laws, control government spending and declare war. But according to Trump voters, the role of the legislative branch is to rubber-stamp the president’s agenda — and they don’t appreciate Republicans who deviate from the party line.

In two recent focus groups that quizzed older Trump voters from across the country about their views of Congress and congressional leaders, participants consistently praised lawmakers who displayed “loyalty” to President Trump and disparaged those whom they viewed as failing to fall in line behind him.

They expressed as much disdain for members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus as they did for the more moderate senators they refer to as RINOs, or “Republicans in Name Only,” including Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

And they reserved their purest aversion for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the solidly conservative former longtime party leader, whom they described alternately as an “obstructionist” to Mr. Trump’s agenda, a “snake in the grass” and a “bowl of Jell-O” with no spine.

Their perspectives offered a striking contrast to the reception that many Republican lawmakers have confronted at raucous town halls throughout the country in recent months. The lawmakers have been grilled and booed by constituents at these events for supporting Mr. Trump’s policies on tariffs, immigration and, most recently, the sprawling domestic policy bill that the G.O.P. pushed through the House last week.