Michael Barbaro

Let's just make sure that they don't derail the effort some other way.

You said something a couple days ago to your colleagues who remained pretty frightened about voting for this bill before the president reversed course, looked at the math and said, I got to get behind this.

You said...

that the president's endorsement in your district, sure, that's gonna help you and your district in the next cycle, but the memory of this vote is gonna live a lot longer than the president's legacy or his political influence.

What did you mean by that?

Well, the president's giving out presidential endorsements to Republicans like Pez Candy over there at the White House, but the deal is that you'll always vote with him.

And so he set them up in a situation where they were all going to take their endorsement and then walk the plank politically.

On Epstein, put themselves at odds with their own constituents.

And so ultimately, I think he realized he'd given them a bad choice, one that...

Frankly, it could cost us the midterms, and it could really diminish the party.

Ultimately, I think it was a political calculation that he made, and he released them from their obligation to walk the plank.

But you're also telling fellow Republicans not to be afraid of saying when he strays.

Absolutely.

Nobody should be afraid.

I wish there had been more than three Republicans who joined me.

But maybe we've got a message here today from the rest of my colleagues, which is when you're on the right side, when you're on the side of the people, especially when you're on the side of the president's base, then you can take that position and keep the president honest.

Maybe he'll come around.

You are what I like to call the tallest tree in the forest right now.

It's a short forest.

And when Donald Trump sees a really tall tree in the forest sometimes, he wants to knock it down.