22 December 2025

They are still the rarest of Republicans – those who have spoken out and stood up to President Donald Trump over the past year, willfully saying something he rarely hears: No.

Even as most of the GOP faithful remains squarely behind the president or unwilling to publicly step out of line, the list of those confident enough to defy Trump over policy and politics is growing. It’s a new moment for Trump, who has kept a tight hold over his party for most of the last decade.

The stresses and strains of the upcoming midterm election year may show whether the fractures in Trump’s base are truly deepening. That, of course, is far from certain. Yet this group of eight Republicans is notable for how they’ve gone against the grain to openly challenge Trump.

Here’s a look at the eight.

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie

Rep. Thomas Massie speaks to members of the media following a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, on November 18. Heather Diehl/Getty Images

Few Republicans have been as undaunted as Massie in brushing aside threats from the White House and taunts from the president. Massie helped lead the charge to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, which resulted in one of biggest retreats the president has ever made when he ultimately urged Congress to pass a bill that he spent months trying to block.

Seldom a week goes by where Massie has missed an opportunity to call the president out for something he’s said, something he’s done or both. The latest example was Trump’s crass comments in the wake of Rob Reiner’s death that Massie called “inappropriate and disrespectful.”

“I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid?” Massie wrote in a social media post. “I challenge anyone to defend it.”

As he seeks reelection to an eighth term, Massie may face his biggest test yet against Trump’s ire. A super PAC aligned with the president has already been running ads asking: “What happened to Thomas Massie?” For his part, Massie has dared Trump to keep up the pressure, mindful of how he won his last primary challenge by more than 60 points.

“If they would just quit hitting me, I might get bored and give up,” Massie told reporters this summer. “But I’m not going to lose. I do not lose.”

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene heads to her final vote in the US House of Representatives, on December 17. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

In the most surprising political breakup of the year, Greene didn’t just announce that she would leave Congress in the middle of her third term. She repeatedly suggested that she pitied Trump.

“I feel very sorry for President Trump. I genuinely do,” Greene told CNN. “It has to be a hard place for someone that is constantly so hateful, and put so much vitriol, name calling and really tells lies about people, in order to try to get his way or win some kind of fight.”

As Trump repeatedly began calling her “Marjorie Traitor Greene,” she accused him of abandoning his “America First” policies and ignoring survivors of abuse at Epstein’s hands. Allies no more, the two hurled insults at one another as she declared: “I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

While Greene said she intended to step away from political life, it’s unclear whether that includes calling a truce to her simmering feud with Trump – or keeping it alive.

She pointedly suggested that she’s not alone in her dismay over Trump, saying: “I think the dam is breaking.”

Indiana State Sen. Jean Leising

Indiana state Sen. Jean Leising on November 18, the ceremonial first day of the 2026 legislative session at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. Christine Tannous/IndyStar/USA Today Network/Imagn

Leising may have voted for Trump three times for president, but she had no problem repudiating him in the Indiana Senate.

A 76-year-old grandmother of eight, Leising has been a conservative state lawmaker for a quarter century. She emerged as one of the most vocal critics of Trump’s redistricting push to redraw congressional boundaries in hopes of helping Republicans win two more House seats in Indiana as part of an unprecedented effort to maintain GOP control of Congress.

She and 20 other Republican senators joined 10 Democrats in voting against the measure earlier this month, delivering a stinging rebuke to Trump and making clear many Republicans were unmoved by his pledge to mount primary challenges against those who opposed him.

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“You wouldn’t change minds by being mean. And the efforts were mean-spirited from the get-go,” Leising told reporters after the vote. “If you were wanting to change votes, you would probably try to explain why we should be doing this, in a positive way. That never happened, so, you know, I think they get what they get.”

Leising noted that she’s not on the ballot until 2028. Her resistance was echoed by Republican lawmakers in Kansas and Nebraska, who have also been cool to the redistricting pressure campaign.

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte

New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte prepares to speak during the Tri-Chambers’ State of the City address in July. Deb Cram/USA Today Network/Imagn

In the summer and fall, White House advisers repeatedly floated New Hampshire as a state where Republicans could pick up one more seat in 2026 if new Congressional lines were drawn.

Ayotte didn’t pick a fight with Trump. She all but ignored him.

“I don’t think the timing is right for redistricting,” Ayotte told WMUR-TV. “As I look at where we are and the things we should be focusing on, this is not something that I support doing at this point.”

While Republicans close to the White House had raised the prospect of finding a primary challenger to run against Ayotte, as the year wound down, talk of a pressure campaign in New Hampshire had all but evaporated.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul leaves a meeting with senior national security officials at the US Capitol on June 26. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Few Republican senators spark more aggravation at the White House than Paul.

The Kentucky Republican has been a frequent critic of Trump’s foreign policy, including the latest rounds of deadly strikes on what the Pentagon says are drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. Paul believes the attacks are a prelude to invade Venezuela, something he opposes.

He criticized a military parade that coincided with Trump’s birthday in June, saying: “The image of military parades is really an image that’s foreign to our heritage.” He also expressed his fury at the White House for initially failing to invite him to the annual summer congressional picnic.

“It’s a mistake on their part to single out and isolate and try to blackball me or others,” Paul said. The president ultimately responded that Paul was invited, but added: “He’s the toughest vote in the history of the US Senate, but why wouldn’t he be?”

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt speaks during an interview at the governor’s mansion in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on February 18. Nick Oxford/Reuters

Stitt is a big believer in states’ rights.

So he drew attention in October when he criticized Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to Illinois, telling The New York Times: “Oklahomans would lose their mind if (Gov. JB) Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

Stitt, who serves as chairman of the National Governors Association, said he supported the president’s broader immigration policy, but believed sending troops without the consent of the state’s governor violated “the federalist system.”

This month, he was also critical of the Trump administration’s decision to kill wind energy initiatives, pointing to a Rhode Island project that was nearly complete before the White House stopped it. Oklahoma, which ranks third in wind energy production, is among the red states where Republicans have disagreed with the president’s crusade against wind energy.

“We’ve got to be agnostic on these issues,” Stitt told a Semafor conference in Washington. “You cannot weaponize these things, and you can’t, just for political purposes, put your thumb on the scale, right?”

Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley

Sen. Chuck Grassley arrives for a policy luncheon at the US Capitol on September 18. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Once again, Trump is angry at Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. And once again, Grassley, who at 92 is the oldest senator in Washington, seems unfazed.

The president has grown increasingly frustrated by the challenges in getting federal prosecutors confirmed in states represented by Democrats. Only two of the 18 US attorneys confirmed so far in Trump’s second term are from states with at least one Democratic senator.

It’s all about the “blue slip,” one of the few remaining bipartisan vestiges of the Senate, where both senators from a state must sign off on judicial and prosecutorial nominees. Trump has repeatedly called for its elimination.

“They should get rid of blue slips,” Trump said. “If you have one Democrat in a state, it is not possible to appoint because of blue slips.”

Grassley, who supports the administration on nearly all other matters, has refused. He has repeatedly said he has no plans to give in to demands from Trump and Vice President JD Vance to kill the “blue slip” tradition.

The fallout is playing out in states like New Jersey. Alina Habba, a former personal lawyer for Trump, stepped down from her US attorney position after she was found to be appointed improperly and did not win support from the state’s two Democratic senators.

Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, center, speaks to the press at the US Capitol on December 17. Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Fitzpatrick is one of three Republican members of Congress serving in a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris won, which gives him more latitude – and more incentive – to show an independent streak.

Fitzpatrick was one of two Republicans who voted against Trump’s biggest legislative achievement, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which earned him the president’s ire.

“Sure as hell, he voted against us,” Trump told a crowd in Pittsburgh, on the opposite end of the state from Fitzpatrick’s Philadelphia-area district.

A week before Christmas, Fitzpatrick created another headache for Republican leaders in the House when he led the charge to join Democrats to force a vote on extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.

Three other Republicans quickly followed suit, a telltale sign that as the midterm elections approach, an act of defiance toward the party and the president could be an act of self-preservation in their quest to win reelection.

“We have a job to do,” Fitzpatrick said,” and that’s to represent our people back home.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/22/politics/trump-republicans-resistance