分析： 艾伦·布雷克
4小时前发布
发布时间： 2026年2月12日，美国东部时间下午2:01
Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
本周出现新迹象：随着总统唐纳德·特朗普支持率下滑，国会共和党人开始重新夺回他们在其上任第一年放弃的部分特权——以及”自豪感”。
这与去年春天形成鲜明对比：当时由共和党控制的众议院投票剥夺了自身阻止特朗普关税的权力——而且是通过玩弄时间概念来实现的。
为规避”任何取消特朗普关税紧急状态的尝试必须在15天内投票”的规则，众议院通过决议，实质上假装某一天不算一天。
宪法明确赋予国会关税控制权。然而此次众议院不仅拒绝阻止特朗普蚕食这一权力，还故意阻止自己收回权力——所有这些都以”帮助特朗普”为名。
如果说有什么能概括国会对特朗普的”刻意默许与效忠”，那就是这些投票。但这只是更广泛趋势的一部分：宪法本可使立法部门比行政和司法部门更具权力，但共和党议员却多次将权力拱手相让，只为与特朗普”保持和平”。
甚至有人称其角色就是”做特朗普想要的任何事”——仿佛2024年特朗普49.8%的普选得票率（仅为相对多数）比他们的选举结果更重要。
这种动态不会轻易消失，但随着中期选举临近（共和党议员将面临选举，而特朗普不会），共和党议员正以更多方式与他决裂。
本周，三名众议院共和党人投票反对延长议长迈克·约翰逊的关税”诡计”。同时，关键共和党人对特朗普的两项重大”入侵立法部门”行为表示反对：一是其政府明显监控议员查阅杰弗里·爱泼斯坦档案的行为；二是其试图起诉六名民主党国会议员的失败尝试。
关税投票
周二的关税投票远非对国会权力的”响亮收复”——仍有214名共和党人投票支持继续向特朗普让渡权力。但这是对特朗普和约翰逊的重大谴责，意味着未来数月可能会出现大量关税相关投票。
这些投票可能考验共和党人在选举年”跟随特朗普支持不受欢迎关税政策”的意愿——如果共和党叛逃者增多，维持这些关税可能会更加困难。
周三，六名众议院共和党人与民主党人联手阻止特朗普对加拿大的关税。鉴于参议院已投票反对这些关税，这意味着共和党控制的参众两院均已公开反对特朗普的做法。
（不过，即便两院通过相同法案，特朗普仍可否决。要推翻否决需要三分之二多数，这需要比当前更多的共和党叛逃者。）
周三发生的事
周三还出现了行政与立法分支关系的更多重大转折：
- 司法部监控议员查阅档案：司法部长帕姆·邦迪向众议院司法委员会作证时提交的文件照片显示，司法部似乎在本周议员查看司法部未删节爱泼斯坦档案时，监控了他们的查阅行为。（司法部未立即回应关于听证会文件的置评请求。）
这引发了”行政部门实际上监视议员”的担忧。民主党批评这违反了权力分立原则。
约翰逊在这类争议中通常的反应是”踢皮球”或淡化处理。但尽管这位共和党议长承认”还有更多情况需要了解”，他周四告诉CNN：”议员查阅档案的行为不应被跟踪”。
“我认为议员显然有权以自己的节奏和判断查阅这些文件，”他表示，”我认为任何人跟踪此类行为都不合适。”
- 起诉民主党议员的失败尝试：周三更大规模的反对行动中，多名共和党人公开反对特朗普政府试图起诉六名民主党议员的失败尝试。
这一行动可追溯至一段视频：六名民主党人敦促军方成员”不服从非法命令”。特朗普及其团队暗示这一信息等同于”叛国”。
但特朗普威胁这些议员”犯有可判死刑的煽动叛乱行为”，这不仅将言论定罪，更可能将只是重申军方已有告知内容的言论定罪。
尽管部分共和党人承认反对这六名议员的视频，但多数人批评行政部门的起诉行为：
- 北卡罗来纳州参议员汤姆·蒂利斯（未寻求连任）称其为”政治法律战”；
- 阿拉斯加州参议员莉萨·穆尔科斯基称其”令人不寒而栗”；
- 乔希·霍利、比尔·卡西迪、迈克·鲁兹和苏珊·柯林斯等参议员均表示反对；
- 参议院武装部队主席罗杰·威克称”拒绝起诉的大陪审团做出了正确决定”；
- 爱荷华州参议院司法主席查克·格拉斯利称联邦执法部门应针对”真正的违法者”。
参议院多数党领袖约翰·图恩虽未严厉评判起诉尝试，但暗示这”根本不是法律问题”。
“我不会那样回应那个情况，”这位南达科他州共和党人表示。
这些回应是否”全力支持”？
不。这些共和党人本可在几周前特朗普暗示报复意图时更强烈地反对。
但如此多共和党议员如此迅速地就此议题发声，实属罕见——这无疑至少部分源于此类行为对其立法部门角色的潜在影响。
这意味着什么
没有人应从本周事态发展中推断：国会共和党人突然准备为”立法部门荣誉”与特朗普抗争。
特朗普的整个政治项目建立在”宣称大量单边权力”之上。国会即便作为平等伙伴，也可能彻底破坏这一项目——尤其是考虑到共和党在众议院的微弱多数。
在许多方面，损害已造成：先例已确立——总统所在政党控制的国会会”袖手旁观”，允许总统成为更具威权色彩的领导人（司法部门可能最终会制衡，但立法部门极少干预）。
但共和党人必须认识到：将所有权力让给”臭名昭著的混乱无序的特朗普”，已给他们带来大量政治麻烦——而这或许不是他们想要永远延续的模式。
或许，选举年正是他们开始意识到这一点的时刻，这并不令人意外。
After letting Trump abuse it for a year, the legislative branch shows a little pride
Analysis by Aaron Blake
4 hr ago
PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 2:01 PM ET
The US Capitol on Tuesday.
Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images
This week brought fresh signs that as President Donald Trump’s popularity withers, Republicans in Congress are starting to reassert some of the prerogatives — and pride — that they abandoned during his first year back in office.
It’s a contrast from just last spring when the Republican-controlled House voted to strip itself of power to stop Trump’s tariffs — and did so by taking some liberties with the concept of time.
It voted to effectively pretend that a day was not a day, in order to skirt a rule that says any attempts to cancel Trump’s tariffs emergency had to be voted on within 15 days.
The Constitution expressly gives Congress the power over tariffs. So here was the House not just declining to stop Trump from gobbling up that power, but willfully preventing itself from reclaiming it. All in the name of helping Trump.
If anything encapsulates Congress’ willful acquiescence and fealty to Trump, those votes had to be it. But it was part of a broader trend. The Constitution arguably makes the legislative branch more powerful than the executive and judicial branches, but GOP lawmakers have repeatedly ceded that power to keep the peace with Trump.
Some have even spoken as if their roles were to do whatever Trump wanted — as if their elections didn’t matter, next to Trump’s 49.8% plurality in the 2024 election.
That dynamic is hardly going away, but with looming midterm elections — in which they’re on the ballot and Trump’s not — GOP lawmakers are breaking with him in more ways.
Three House Republicans voted this week to prevent an extension of House Speaker Mike Johnson’s tariffs gimmick. And meanwhile, key Republicans have balked at a pair of major Trump incursions into the legislative branch: his administration’s apparent monitoring of lawmakers’ searches of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and its failed attempt to indict six congressional Democrats.
The tariff votes
The tariffs vote Tuesday was hardly a resounding reclamation of congressional power, given 214 Republicans still voted to continue ceding it to Trump. But it was a significant rebuke of Trump and Johnson that means we’re likely to see a bevy of tariffs votes in the coming months.
Those votes could test Republicans’ willingness to toe Trump’s unpopular line on tariffs in an election year — and potentially make the tariffs more difficult to sustain if the GOP defections grow.
Already on Wednesday, six House Republicans joined with Democrats to block Trump’s Canada tariffs. Given the Senate already voted against those tariffs, that means majorities of both GOP-controlled chambers are now on-record opposing what Trump has done.
(Still, even if both chambers passed the same measure, Trump could veto it. They would then need two-thirds majorities to override him, which would require much bigger GOP defections than we’re currently seeing.)
What happened Wednesday
Wednesday also delivered some more big moments in the relationship between the two branches of government.
Photographs of a document that Attorney General Pam Bondi brought to her testimony to the House Judiciary Committee suggested DOJ appeared to have monitored lawmakers’ searches of the Epstein files when they viewed the unredacted files at the Justice Department this week. (The department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the paperwork Bondi brought to the hearing.)
That raised the prospect that the executive branch was effectively spying on members. Democrats criticized it as a violation of the separation of powers.
Johnson’s usual response when such controversies arise is to punt or downplay. But while the GOP speaker allowed there was still more to learn, he told CNN on Thursday it wasn’t “appropriate” for lawmakers’ searches to be tracked.
“I think members should obviously have the right to peruse those at their own speed and with their own discretion and I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody to be tracking that,” he said.
Also Wednesday — on a bigger scale — we saw a coterie of Republicans speak out against DOJ’s failed attempt to indict six congressional Democrats.
The effort traces back to a video in which those six Democrats had urged members of the military not to obey illegal orders. Trump and others around him suggested that message was akin to treason.
But Trump’s threat — that these lawmakers had committed “seditious behavior, punishable by death” — didn’t just come across as an effort to criminalize speech; but to potentially criminalize speech that effectively just restated what members of the military are already told.
Many Republicans have now criticized the administration’s effort to indict the Democrats, even as some assured that they objected to the six lawmakers’ video.
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who’s not running for reelection, called it “political lawfare.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska called it “chilling.” Sens. Josh Hawley, Bill Cassidy, Mike Rounds and Susan Collins all objected. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker said the grand jury that rejected the charges “made the right decision.” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said federal law enforcement should be targeting “real law-breakers.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune didn’t judge the attempted indictments as harshly but did suggest it simply wasn’t a legal matter.
“That wouldn’t have been my response to that,” the South Dakota Republican said.
Are all of these responses full-throated? No. And these Republicans all could have objected more strongly weeks ago when Trump telegraphed his effort at retribution.
But it’s rare you see so many GOP lawmakers speaking out on a subject so quickly. And that undoubtedly owes at least in part to what this effort could have meant for their branch of government.
What it means
Nobody should look at this week’s developments and deduce that Republicans in Congress are suddenly ready to fight Trump for the honor of the legislative branch.
So much of Trump’s project is built on claiming massive amounts of unilateral power. And Congress acting as even an equal partner would likely torpedo the entire thing — especially given the GOP’s House majority is so small.
And in many ways, the damage is done. The precedent has been set for a Congress controlled by the president’s party to effectively stand by — to try to let the president serve as a more authoritarian leader who can be checked (eventually and maybe) by the judiciary but rarely by the legislature.
But at some point, Republicans have to recognize that ceding all that power to the notoriously unwieldy and chaotic Trump has caused them lots of political problems, and that maybe this isn’t how they want to conduct business forever.
An election year, perhaps unsurprisingly, seems to be when they’re coming to that realization.
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