CONGRESS/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Back before he controlled the GOP, before his endorsement seemed capable of swinging a primary, before he was President of the United States and before he’d won most Republican primaries in 2016, Donald Trump had very few friends in Congress. Just a handful of Republican lawmakers endorsed his campaign early on. Interestingly, while Trump’s power in the party has only grown, those lawmakers who first stuck their necks out for him have not fared well in the Trump era. The Washington Post was tracking this back in March of 2016, when Trump had the GOP primary well in hand but only token support on Capitol Hill. They called the first five lawmakers to endorse him Congress’ Trump caucus. You’d be hard-pressed to find many Republicans who wouldn’t endorse him now. Those who opposed him in 2016 have paid a price. (Ahem, Jeff Flake). But so, it turns out, have the members of the Trump caucus, two of whom have been charged by authorities with breaking the law this summer, one of whom had to withdraw from a nomination to be the nation’s drug czar early in Trump’s presidency and one of whom is the President’s biggest punching bag in his own Cabinet.
–Z. Byron Wolf, “The original ‘Trump caucus’ in Congress has not fared well at all,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 21, 2018 9:42 pm