Jeffrey Goldberg: Good evening, and welcome to Washington Week.

So, back in the day, Newt Gingrich understood something that Donald Trump doesn't understand.

Gingrich's speakership was short and tumultuous and ultimately unsuccessful, but he knew that there was more than one flavor of Republican Congress, and so he famously gave moderate and progressive Republicans some running room and some forgiveness when they disagreed with him.

But President Trump values only loyalty, and Senators Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and John Cornyn apparently didn't give him enough of that.

Now, they're on the way out of the Senate, and they owe nothing, less than nothing, really, to the president, already they've been showing signs of defiance.

Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Stephen Hayes, the CEO and editor of The Dispatch, Annie Linskey is a White House reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Michael Scherer is a staff writer and a White House correspondent at The Atlantic, makes you sound very busy, and Nancy Youssef is a staff writer and a Pentagon correspondent at The Atlantic, also very busy.

Thank you all for joining me.

We're going to do -- this is going to be like one of those Jeopardy potpourri rounds.

It's going to be a lot of stuff.

So we're going to get to a lot of stuff tonight.

Steve, let's start with you.

The president got his immigration bill through, but he's having more and more trouble keeping Republican senators in line.

What gives?

Stephen Hayes, Editor, The Dispatch: Well, I mean, the first point that has to be made, and that we've discussed on this very show many times, this is not new frustration with Donald Trump.

It's emerging frustration with Donald Trump.

Like a lot of these Republicans who are now voicing their frustration and willing to speak out have been frustrated with him behind the scenes, in some cases, for a decade.

They're now just more willing to talk about it.

I think there are two primary reasons.

One, they're deeply offended by Trump's choice to endorse Ken Paxton in Texas over John Cornyn.

They like John Cornyn.

They raised money for John Cornyn.

They've known him for years, and they think he was going to win.

They're worried about Ken Paxton.

They know that it makes it less likely that Republicans will keep the Senate, because that money is going to be flowing to other states.

It's going to be sucked to Texas instead of flowing to other states.

And then the second thing is he's asking them to publicly defend more and more preposterous things.

This -- you know, whether it's the ballroom and the changing of funding in the ballroom, firing the parliamentarian, whether it's the slush fund, $1.776 billion of a slush fund that they know was going to go, at least in part, to the people who attacked the Capitol and tried to attack them on January 6th.

Nobody wants to defend that.

They're sick of it.

They're done.

So, between those two things, I think they're sort of, let's go, let's talk about it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, but what is done?

I mean, Annie what does done look like in the next six months?

How far do these YOLO guys go?

Annie Linskey, White House reporter, The Wall Street Journal: Yes.

Well, one thing I will say is one major thing that changed is three of those members, three of those Republicans that have suddenly become quite eager to voice publicly and vote against the president in some cases, have been pushed out by the president.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Annie Linskey: And that's a group that, you know, some people are in D.C.

call the YOLO caucus.

It turns out in the Senate, they call themselves the Wounded Bear caucus because -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Dangerous, wounded bear is very dangerous.

Annie Linskey: A wounded bear is very dangerous.

Jeffrey Goldberg: I call them the Janis Joplin -- Annie Linskey: Oh, okay.

Jeffrey Goldberg: -- caucus.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Annie Linskey: Oh, I love it.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Annie Linskey: But they have -- you know, the next six months, they have the ability to make life difficult for Donald Trump, particularly around his nominations.

I mean, he may want to replace some cabinet members.

In fact, he has wanted to replace some cabinet members.

And they suddenly have a sort of more -- they can be a little more demanding in what they want from the president.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

What else can they do, Michael?

Michael Scherer, Staffer Writer, The Atlantic: When the president put out his budget this year for 2027, there was $10 billion for the Interior Department for D.C.

beautification, $10 billion with a B. When the House just referred the bill up, the appropriators, they had zero for that.

I mean, there's a lot of spending stuff that's going to be happening.

And like we saw with the fund for the Justice Department, I think Cassidy and Cornyn know the Senate, they know the rules.

We haven't mentioned Mitch McConnell, who's on his way out.

He knows it better than anybody else.

Jeffrey Goldberg: He's a permanent YOLO now.

Michael Scherer: Right.

We have Susan Collins, we have Lisa Murkowski, we have Rand Paul on foreign policy.

I mean, like it's a big group, and we're talking about a Senate with just a very small margin.

And then we haven't talked about the House.

The House had a vote this week where four Republicans broke with the president, basically a symbolic vote saying that he needs an authorization for use of force in Iran if he wants to go back to fighting that war.

But I think it's breaking down in the House as well.

And the amazing -- if you talk to Senate Republican leaders, they will just be amazed at how unforced this error was.

You know, he didn't need to put himself with this sort of premature lame duck status at this point in his presidency.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Well, that's the point about giving people a little bit of room to maneuver, but that's not -- I mean, you both cover this guy every day.

I mean, that's not his move.

Absolute loyalty is the move, right?

Annie Linskey: Right.

I mean, he has held a grudge against Cornyn for quite a while now.

And, you know, he had signaled that he was going to endorse Cornyn.

I think that's what makes it so much more difficult for Cornyn's colleagues is it -- the signal was there that Cornyn was going to have the endorsement.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Annie Linskey: And then for Trump to go ahead and go with Paxton was just this big sort of nuclear bomb that went off in this Senate, which still is collegial, and that that caused just this, you know, heart breaking for days and days.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Stephen Hayes: And it's not just those YOLO members as well.

I mean, you know, John Thune, who's not going to ever go nuclear the way that Thom Tillis, for instance, did, has made very clear that he's not happy with some of the things the president has done in his very understated way, like, oh, I'm just learning about this, this is new to me, I don't understand what the purpose of the slush fund was, or Tom Cotton, when he was asked about this nomination of Bill Pulte to be the acting director of the National Intelligence, Cotton, who's chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said, I have no observations on this matter.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Stephen Hayes: He didn't say a lot.

He didn't need to go sort of nuclear, but he made very clear what he thinks.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes.

Nancy?

Nancy Youssef, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: I think it's notable, though, on the Paxton support that came after it was clear that he was going to win, and a signal of Trump trying to show his continued influence on the party even though the race was already going the way it ended up going.

So, it's interesting that he's both affecting his -- Jeffrey Goldberg: Were you 100 percent sure that Paxton was going to win without that endorsement?

Nancy Youssef: I don't -- I think it was going -- yes.

(CROSSTALKS) Jeffrey Goldberg: So, you're just saying he was just getting on the winning horse?

Nancy Youssef: Well, I just think it's interesting that he's both sort of creating these fissures within his party, and at the same time, trying to show that he has influence anytime he can leverage that sort of message, whether it's actually affecting the outcome of the elections or not.

Annie Linskey: But, ultimately, it means Republicans are going to have to defend, you know, Paxton, and that is what Republicans -- some Republican strategists are calling it like, a $100 million mistake.

Like they will have to put a lot of money into this.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Yes, right, right.

Nancy, go back to the point being made earlier on the war powers.

How does this loosening of loyalty affect the Iran war and whatever, Cuba, Greenland, whatever he's planning in the near future?

Nancy Youssef: Well, Michael's right.

The vote itself was largely symbolic, but it comes at a time when the president is trying to negotiate with Iran, has really struggled to reach a deal.

And the idea that we're starting to see fissures within his own party, I think, potentially gives Iran some leverage in terms of pushing for a deal that is more favorable to them.

What's been interesting throughout this is that we've seen the president really toggle between trying to end this war as quickly as possible and also get some wide-reaching, headline-grabbing outcome out of it.

And so if you're the Iranians and you're seeing these splits start to happen within the president's own party, they might see that as an opportunity to push for things, like greater control over the straits or greater economic relief.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Annie, before I jump to Iran, because I want to talk about the current status of the war, not that anybody understands the current status of the war, but we're going to try.

Annie, I just wanted to ask you very quickly, what does a Trump presidency look like if the House does go Democratic or the Senate goes Democratic?

Annie Linskey: We've talked about this too, this idea of Democrats having a subpoena cannon ready to go.

I mean, those subpoenas and the investigations are coming if the Democrats win.

I mean, my sense is they are drafted, and there's a very clear target list for Democrats.

So, it becomes a very different Washington for Trump.

He's had two years of being in full control, and he's going to have much nastier legal fights, and so are his allies, which also makes things harder.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.