Rachael Bade writes:

The vast, impressive coalition that catapulted Trump back into the White House started to fray as the MAGA faithful took stock of the shock tariffs.

Start with the sniping on display from Trump’s allies in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, including many who were openly balking at his full-bore embrace of protectionism. Even Elon Musk, Trump’s most prominent adviser, reportedly tried to get Trump to back off his tariff obsession, then took to openly attacking top trade adviser Peter Navarro as “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Vocal supporter and hedge fund mogul Bill Ackman warned Trump of a “self-induced economic nuclear winter” and accused Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick of profiting from a bad economy. And the discontent even spread to the podcasting bros who helped connect Trump with a legion of young men during the 2024 campaign, including Barstool Sports’ David Portnoy, who claimed to have lost $20 million after Trump introduced his latest tariffs, with Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro calling it “about as bad a rollout as you can do.”

“The idea that this is inherently good and makes the American economy strong is wrongheaded,” Shapiro told his viewers. “It’s untrue. The idea that it is going to result in massive re-shoring of manufacturing is also untrue.”

The unease spread to the populist intellectual wing of the MAGA firmament. Pro-tariff economist Oren Cass — who has close ties to Vice President JD Vance — sent a warning to Trump in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday. While he endorsed the president’s 10 percent global tariff, Cass argued that the administration was moving too quickly in enacting the additional “reciprocal” levies that could create “maximal disarray” in supply chains.

The image of Trump losing control was compounded on Capitol Hill, where the president’s chokehold on his own party appears to have slackened. Enough Republicans joined Democrats to approve a Senate measure that would reverse Trump’s tariffs on Canada, then seven GOP senators — including Trump allies like Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Chuck Grassley of Iowa — co-sponsored legislation to strip away Trump’s power to slap on tariffs without congressional consent.

Meanwhile, House conservatives who have fallen in line with Trump on essentially everything — from re-electing Johnson as speaker to backing stopgap spending bills they’ve railed against for years — drew a red line on a critical budget vote, furious that they weren’t getting promised spending cuts.

Several even rebuffed Trump’s personal outreach. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Trump he wouldn’t play ball at a Tuesday White House meeting. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the Freedom Caucus chairman, wouldn’t even take the meeting. [Continue reading…]