Congressional Democrats had been anxious about helping Republicans pass a major housing bill that would give the G.O.P. a notable win on the affordability issues at the center of the midterm campaigns, and dilute Democratic attacks on rising costs.
They needn’t have worried.
Just as Republicans were pointing to the measure as proof that they could deliver big things with their majority, President Trump scuttled his party’s big moment by disparaging the legislation and refusing to sign it unless he got a new bill to impose voting restrictions.
It was just the latest twist in an increasingly tortured relationship between Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans, who were left dumbfounded and wondering if for some reason the president was trying to sabotage their chances in November and cost them their majorities. And it reflected how profoundly Mr. Trump had crippled his once vaunted governing trifecta, now all but paralyzed by his whipsawing demands and pronouncements.
Frustrated and stymied, Republican senators threw in the towel on Wednesday night and left town until mid-July, leaving multiple consequential matters hanging, including the fate of the housing bill, the renewal of a critical terror surveillance measure and the nomination of a new intelligence chief.
But they did manage one piece of business before hitting the road. After being excoriated by Mr. Trump in a closed-door lunch for allowing a resolution rebuking his handling of the Iran war to be adopted, Republicans sought to bring up a similar measure and then blocked it, using the Senate floor as a stage for soothing the president.
Such contortions have become facts of life for Republicans as they spend time they had hoped to devote to protecting their majorities to instead accommodate a president who undercuts them with increasing frequency.
That was the case last week when Mr. Trump blindsided Senate Republicans by yanking Jay Clayton, his nominee for director of national intelligence, from a confirmation hearing, upending delicate negotiations to renew an expired terrorism surveillance program that is now in limbo.
It was also at play in recent weeks as the G.O.P. scrambled to salvage its $70 billion immigration enforcement bill after Mr. Trump’s personal agenda — namely his White House ballroom project and his desire for a federal fund to pay Jan. 6 rioters — threatened to kill it.
If Senate Republicans had thought the private luncheon this week would help clear the air and chart a path forward, they were very wrong. Mr. Trump took the opportunity to deliver an extended rant about how Senate Republicans had failed him, according to multiple senators who attended the session. He vilified some by name, and did not engage in constructive dialogue about how to mend their differences, attendees said.
“The president closed by preaching unity, but he spent the entire hour talking about things which were not exactly unifying,” noted Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who experienced Mr. Trump’s wrath when the president endorsed Mr. Cornyn’s opponent in the state’s Senate G.O.P. primary, all but assuring the incumbent’s defeat.
The president’s tirade did have one immediate effect. A shouting match at the luncheon with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, another of Mr. Trump’s Republican electoral victims, over the Iran war resulted in Mr. Cassidy being treated to a White House briefing on the topic. He later switched his vote on the war powers resolution, helping clear the way for the Senate to block it, just a day after it had adopted a similar one.
The late-night vote was mainly political theater, but it appeared to have its intended effect. The president quickly embraced it as a victory and a validation of his handling of the conflict, even as Republicans were increasingly expressing reservations about it.
The events were yet another example of how congressional Republicans have spent much of the past year trying to appease the president, only to discover that he quickly turns on them if he does not get everything he demands.
It was also a strikingly discordant note at a time when parties are usually attempting to show they can produce on Capitol Hill and unify around a winning message that can drive voters to the polls.
The bipartisan housing bill was supposed to provide such a rallying point. After struggling for months to come to an agreement on how to put home buying within reach of more Americans, the House and Senate finally cleared the legislation this week. They planned to underscore their win with a cinematic bill signing ceremony in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, a tableau that was destined for Republican campaign ads across the country.
Democrats were on board as well, despite their worry about the political benefits for embattled Republicans.
But just before the event, Mr. Trump announced that he was not particularly interested in affixing his signature to the legislation — certainly not until Congress delivered the SAVE America Act, legislation imposing significant new requirements and restrictions on voting. That development opened the door for Democrats to pounce on the president for holding up his party’s priority.
“It’s utterly amazing,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said. “Trump is running away from one of the very few accomplishments that could actually help the American people.”
Mr. Trump may yet sign the legislation or allow it to become law, but he has already significantly diminished its political impact by dismissing it as minor, questioning its benefits and ditching the signing ceremony.
In the lunch meeting this week, Mr. Trump again reiterated his demands that Senate Republicans do whatever it takes, including gutting the filibuster, to pass the election law, even though Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, has told him repeatedly that the votes do not exist to do so. That conflict is driving much of the division with Senate Republicans, with no resolution in sight.
Senate Republicans are leery of calls by their House colleagues to embark on another Republican-only policy bill to provide new Pentagon funding and enact other partisan priorities. They worry they would be forced to take a risky series of political votes just before the election, when the president could again pull the rug out from under them at any time.
As the Senate departed, Mr. Thune ticked off a list of legislative items the Senate could take up in the coming weeks, including a Pentagon policy bill and a farm bill. Missing from his list was the election bill that the president so desperately wants.
