Trump keeps turning Republican wins into loyalty tests — and political liabilities

US President Donald Trump, alongside Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican from South Dakota, speaks to the press on the way to a lunch meeting with Senate Republicans at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2026. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images President Donald Trump is turning a series of would-be Republican wins i nto political headaches for his own party, complicating GOP efforts to show voters they can govern as they head into the July 4 congressional recess, critics say. In the last two weeks, Trump delayed his own director of national intelligence pick , effectively derailing talks over a key foreign surveillance program that lapsed, then on Wednesday scrapped at the last minute a planned signing of a bipartisan housing bill aimed at affordability . He's repeatedly pressed Senate Republicans to gut the filibuster to clear a path for a voter-ID and noncitizen voting bill that lacks the votes to pass. And even an Iran peace deal has become harder for some Republicans to defend amid complaints that Congress was left in the dark and an $87.6 billion White House request to pay for the war. And often in his recent public remarks, Trump returns to the failed reflecting pool renovation. The fallout has spread across Capitol Hill. The Senate, in response to the dysfunction, started its July 4 recess early and left town Wednesday night. …