Perhaps the most infamous quote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) ever offered about Donald Trump came in May 2016.
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed,” Graham said, “and we will deserve it.” The Twitter post remains live to this day, nearly nine years later.
Despite Graham’s warning, this marriage of convenience has more or less worked out for him and his fellow Republicans. Trump is now a two-term president, and Republicans control both chambers of Congress.
But the relationship has constantly been a fraught one — one in which Trump holds just about all the cards and seems to care about his adopted party only insofar as it can help him.
Republicans might want to start asking themselves what they do if and when it all blows up — and if Graham’s admonition might ultimately prove right. Because right now Trump is effectively threatening them with potential destruction, with little to no sign that he cares what they think about that.
Trump’s global tariffs announcement has not only rocked the stock market; it’s also rocked the often uneasy relationship Republicans have with Trump. The party that was once defined by free trade continues to dance around its clear reservations with what Trump is doing. But fear permeates their commentary — not just fear of the economic costs, but the political ones.
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Republican senators like Rand Paul (Kentucky) and even the normally Trump-loyal Ted Cruz (Texas) are warning about an electoral catastrophe. “If we go into a recession — particularly a bad recession — 2026 in all likelihood politically would be a bloodbath,” Cruz said Friday on his podcast. History suggests they have a point; most of the GOP’s worst elections since the Civil War came after the party instituted large tariffs.
Follow Trump’s first 100 Days
And one new quote should send shivers down their spines. It comes from an authoritative new Washington Post report about how Trump arrived at his surprisingly large and often-puzzling tariffs.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told The Post. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
This is an anonymous quote. And the White House certainly has reason to project resoluteness. Trump himself posted Friday, “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” and, “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!”
But we’re also in a very different Trump presidency than the first version. Gone are many of the non-loyalists who might seek to check his impulses, as former Trump commerce secretary Wilbur Ross suggestively noted to The Post’s reporters. (“The people now have been confirmed as true Trumpers,” Ross said.) Trump isn’t eligible to run for another term, so his personal political considerations are lessened. He is also pursuing far bolder and more authoritarian policies, many of which are quite unpopular (as are his tariffs). And he seems to have little regard for how any of it will play politically for the Republicans who will soon be on the ballot.
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Combine that with the fact that Trump has literally been promoting tariffs for decades — it’s his long-standing and most consistent policy pitch — and you could scarcely rule out Trump’s deciding to go down with the tariff ship, if that’s what it comes to.
The political problem with tariffs is that, to the extent there is ever an economic or political payoff, it tends to be way in the future. It takes a long time for the economy to reorient itself.
The big purported benefit is the revitalization of domestic manufacturing, which suddenly is able to better compete with the imports on which taxes are being raised. But that requires companies to relocate to the United States. It also requires the workers that can and are willing to do the work that’s being relocated, which remains a huge question mark.
In other words, it’s a very lengthy process that requires a willingness to play the long game. It needs buy-in and commitment. It’s why Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is promising a good economic report in the fourth quarter, even as we just started the second quarter.
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But that also means you’ll be pot-committed, economically and politically, to something that might never pan out. And if it doesn’t, the costs could be staggering and long-lasting. They’ll also, given Congress has effectively ceded power over tariffs to the executive, be tied to precisely one man — Trump — and his political movement and party.
There are early signs that Republicans aren’t thrilled about making that commitment, and some unusual suspects are clearly trying to gently talk him out of it. The fact that Cruz, of all people, is speaking up is particularly striking. The fact that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill shortly after Trump’s tariff announcement seeking to return tariff power to Congress is also telling. These aren’t the Susan Collinses and Lisa Murkowskis that often distance themselves from Trump.
But the other reality here is that, just like Congress unwittingly green-lit this Trump gambit by handing its tariff prerogatives over to the executive branch over the decades, Republicans have ceded the initiative to Trump for many years. Their unwillingness to criticize him even when they obviously disagreed has served to enable Trump’s domination of the party. It’s the product of years of making the expedient call to just let Trump be Trump.
It’s now become clear that the old Trump was contained because of the people around him and his own political considerations. The new Trump is a different animal.
And when he finally does go too far — and risks his fellow Republicans’ hides — they have little to fight back with. Which is what we’re seeing now. To the extent Trump does walk the party into destruction, they’ve handed him the leash.
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed,” Graham said, “and we will deserve it.” The Twitter post remains live to this day, nearly nine years later.
Despite Graham’s warning, this marriage of convenience has more or less worked out for him and his fellow Republicans. Trump is now a two-term president, and Republicans control both chambers of Congress.
But the relationship has constantly been a fraught one — one in which Trump holds just about all the cards and seems to care about his adopted party only insofar as it can help him.
Republicans might want to start asking themselves what they do if and when it all blows up — and if Graham’s admonition might ultimately prove right. Because right now Trump is effectively threatening them with potential destruction, with little to no sign that he cares what they think about that.
Trump’s global tariffs announcement has not only rocked the stock market; it’s also rocked the often uneasy relationship Republicans have with Trump. The party that was once defined by free trade continues to dance around its clear reservations with what Trump is doing. But fear permeates their commentary — not just fear of the economic costs, but the political ones.
Advertisement
ADVERTISING
Republican senators like Rand Paul (Kentucky) and even the normally Trump-loyal Ted Cruz (Texas) are warning about an electoral catastrophe. “If we go into a recession — particularly a bad recession — 2026 in all likelihood politically would be a bloodbath,” Cruz said Friday on his podcast. History suggests they have a point; most of the GOP’s worst elections since the Civil War came after the party instituted large tariffs.
Follow Trump’s first 100 Days
And one new quote should send shivers down their spines. It comes from an authoritative new Washington Post report about how Trump arrived at his surprisingly large and often-puzzling tariffs.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking told The Post. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
This is an anonymous quote. And the White House certainly has reason to project resoluteness. Trump himself posted Friday, “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” and, “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!”
But we’re also in a very different Trump presidency than the first version. Gone are many of the non-loyalists who might seek to check his impulses, as former Trump commerce secretary Wilbur Ross suggestively noted to The Post’s reporters. (“The people now have been confirmed as true Trumpers,” Ross said.) Trump isn’t eligible to run for another term, so his personal political considerations are lessened. He is also pursuing far bolder and more authoritarian policies, many of which are quite unpopular (as are his tariffs). And he seems to have little regard for how any of it will play politically for the Republicans who will soon be on the ballot.
Advertisement
Combine that with the fact that Trump has literally been promoting tariffs for decades — it’s his long-standing and most consistent policy pitch — and you could scarcely rule out Trump’s deciding to go down with the tariff ship, if that’s what it comes to.
The political problem with tariffs is that, to the extent there is ever an economic or political payoff, it tends to be way in the future. It takes a long time for the economy to reorient itself.
The big purported benefit is the revitalization of domestic manufacturing, which suddenly is able to better compete with the imports on which taxes are being raised. But that requires companies to relocate to the United States. It also requires the workers that can and are willing to do the work that’s being relocated, which remains a huge question mark.
In other words, it’s a very lengthy process that requires a willingness to play the long game. It needs buy-in and commitment. It’s why Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is promising a good economic report in the fourth quarter, even as we just started the second quarter.
Advertisement
But that also means you’ll be pot-committed, economically and politically, to something that might never pan out. And if it doesn’t, the costs could be staggering and long-lasting. They’ll also, given Congress has effectively ceded power over tariffs to the executive, be tied to precisely one man — Trump — and his political movement and party.
There are early signs that Republicans aren’t thrilled about making that commitment, and some unusual suspects are clearly trying to gently talk him out of it. The fact that Cruz, of all people, is speaking up is particularly striking. The fact that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill shortly after Trump’s tariff announcement seeking to return tariff power to Congress is also telling. These aren’t the Susan Collinses and Lisa Murkowskis that often distance themselves from Trump.
But the other reality here is that, just like Congress unwittingly green-lit this Trump gambit by handing its tariff prerogatives over to the executive branch over the decades, Republicans have ceded the initiative to Trump for many years. Their unwillingness to criticize him even when they obviously disagreed has served to enable Trump’s domination of the party. It’s the product of years of making the expedient call to just let Trump be Trump.
It’s now become clear that the old Trump was contained because of the people around him and his own political considerations. The new Trump is a different animal.
And when he finally does go too far — and risks his fellow Republicans’ hides — they have little to fight back with. Which is what we’re seeing now. To the extent Trump does walk the party into destruction, they’ve handed him the leash.
