Trump suffers day of significant Republican defections on House and Senate votes [View all]

A number of Republicans in Congress bucked President Trump on Thursday.
January 8, 2026 at 6:05 p.m. EST

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Significant numbers of Republicans joined with Democrats in voting against President Donald Trump’s interests on high-profile pieces of legislation Thursday, suggesting his party’s unyielding loyalty to this point in his term has started to splinter.

Earlier in the day, the Senate advanced a bipartisan measure intended to block the Trump administration from conducting further military action in Venezuela. Five Republicans joined every Democratic senator in advancing the resolution, following the White House’s capture of Venezuela’s president, without explicit permission from Congress.

The resolution is expected to get a chilly reception in the House if it passes the Senate, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) unlikely to bring it to the floor. But it gave Senate Republicans an opportunity to come out against continued military action in Venezuela — which Trump and some administration officials have refused to rule out — without congressional approval.

Trump survived House votes to overturn two of his vetoes, which requires two-thirds of the chamber, but at least two dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to defy his will, demonstrating a greater willingness than seen last year to buck their party’s president. Thirty-five Republican lawmakers voted to override Trump’s veto of the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act, a bill meant to aid a decades-old Colorado water project, while 24 Republicans voted to negate Trump’s veto of the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act, which codifies tribal land rights in Florida.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/08/trump-veto-override-aca-war-powers-votes