Three Republicans Break Ranks on Tariffs

Massie, Bacon, and Kiley gave Democrats a path to force votes on repealing presidential tariffs, exposing divisions over executive power

Mike Johnson’s grip on his razor-thin House majority just got slippery. The Speaker failed spectacularly Tuesday night to reinstate a ban that would have blocked lawmakers from challenging President Trump’s tariffs through July. Three Republicans Thomas Massie, Don Bacon, and Kevin Kiley crossed party lines to vote with Democrats, sinking the procedural vote and opening the door for Democrats to force actual votes on repealing the president’s tariff policy. In a chamber where Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote, losing three feels like the political equivalent of a three-point swing in the fourth quarter.

Here’s what makes this particularly brutal for Johnson and the Trump administration

The Senate has already passed at least three resolutions rebuking Trump’s tariffs. But in the House, the party-line votes have consistently blocked any floor action on the matter. Democrats kept trying to force votes, Republicans kept blocking them, and the whole thing became a standoff. Johnson’s procedural vote was supposed to end that standoff by essentially silencing Democratic efforts to challenge the tariffs. It was a shutdown power move. Except three of his own caucus members said absolutely not.

The Republican defectors each had their own reasons for breaking

Don Bacon, the Nebraska congressman, didn’t mince words in his statement afterward. He said he doesn’t “like putting the important work of the House on pause, but Congress needs to be able to debate on tariffs.” He went further, arguing that tariffs have been a “net negative” for the economy and are basically a hidden tax that consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are all paying. Then he made the constitutional argument: “Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It’s time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility.”

That’s not some minor quibble. That’s a fundamental disagreement about how much power Trump should have over trade policy.

GOP leadership had basically argued that lawmakers should just trust the Supreme Court to sort this out eventually. The thinking was: let Trump do his thing, let Democrats challenge it through the courts, and let the judicial system decide if the tariffs are constitutional. Which is a… take. It’s asking Republicans to voluntarily cede their constitutional authority on the assumption that the courts will protect their interests. Massie, Bacon, and Kiley apparently didn’t think that was a good deal.

Johnson acknowledged the political reality after the vote failed

 “Look, this is life with a small majority. I mean, you know, I need unanimity every day, and we didn’t get it tonight,” he told reporters. That’s as close to admitting defeat as a Speaker can get without actually resigning. He’s basically saying: I have to get every single Republican to vote with me on everything, and that’s an impossible standard. When you lose three votes in a chamber where margins are this thin, you lose.

But Johnson also threw down a marker, insisting that “the vast majority of the House Republicans agree wholeheartedly with the president, and we’re going to give him the latitude to continue his trade policy.” Translation: yes, we had defections, but most of us are still with Trump.

The real story here is about congressional power versus executive power

These three Republicans effectively argued that Congress shouldn’t voluntarily surrender its constitutional authority over tariffs, even to a president their party generally supports. That’s a constitutional principle that transcends partisan loyalty. Whether it’s enough to shift the trajectory of Trump‘s trade policy remains to be seen. But for the first time, Democrats have an actual opening to force votes on the issue, and that’s because three Republicans decided principle mattered more than party unity.