As the government shutdown deadline approached, lawmakers on Capitol Hill were intensely focused on a stopgap spending measure. Donald Trump was not.

In fact, the president-elect said little about the congressional resolution as it took shape, and he remained equally silent as leaders unveiled a bipartisan agreement Tuesday. But Wednesday, after Elon Musk targeted bipartisan agreement with misinformationAsset decided to intervenealso, condemning the legislation and making new last minute demands.

A day later, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives came up with an alternative plan, which seemed intended to appease the new president. At least initially, they succeeded: Trump published enthusiastic approval of the Republican-only bill on its social media platform, ordering “all Republicans” to vote for it in order to “do what’s best for our country.”

Hours later, the bill approved by Trump failed embarrassingly — in part because many Republicans ignored the president-elect’s directive. THE The New York Times reported:

There is, of course, no denying that Trump is the dominant voice in contemporary Republican Party politics. Indeed, a many observers to have makes the case that the modern GOP often It looks like a cult of personality around the president-elect, and these arguments tend to be quite convincing. The Times report adds that Trump has “methodically taken control of the Republican Party at every level,” which is undeniably true.

But what’s often overlooked is that when it comes to events at the Capitol, the new president likes to bark orders, but GOP members don’t always follow them. This is partly because Trump still doesn’t know how to convince policymakers and partly because some lawmakers have ideological preferences that overshadow Trump’s demands.

This happens more often than some in the party want to admit, especially in the wake of Trump’s defeat in 2020. Earlier this year, for example, Congress considered how and whether to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Trump intervened hoping to derail this effort, by ordering Republicans to “KILL FISA” due to a misguided conspiracy theory.

Trump Failed: Congress Reauthorized FISA with broad support from GOP lawmakers who felt comfortable ignoring his orders.

A day later, as the Republican-led House prepared to accept U.S. security assistance for Ukraine, Trump did not explicitly denounce the legislation, although he wasn’t particularly subtle on his opposition. GOP leaders introduced the bill anyway, and it passed with more than 300 bipartisan votes.

These are not isolated incidents. Trump called on House Republicans to elect Rep. Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House, and that didn’t happen. Trump told Republicans shut down the government in September 2023, and that didn’t happen. Trump asked Republicans to use the debt ceiling default on the country’s obligationsand that didn’t happen.

As regular readers might do reminderTrump also called on Senate Republicans to replace Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader, and they didn’t. Trump told Republicans derail a bipartisan infrastructure package, and they didn’t do it. Asset seemed especially eager for GOP lawmakers to oppose an overhaul of the electoral count law, and they didn’t do that either.

There is a myth in some circles that Trump can take the lead and watch as Republican lawmakers link arms and meekly follow his instructions.

In several notable cases, this is simply not the case.

This article updates our related prior coverage.