Seems like the Senate is on the verge of open revolt against Trump. Frankly though, in this case they are weakening their own position in terms of holding the Senate by refusing to budge, but perhaps they have found a way to twist the knife in Trump while appearing to be "more conservative than him" and thus "safe to do so" in their eyes anyway.
I think on some level they want to be the minority party again because that's all they really know how to do anymore and they've already confirmed like 30 years worth of federal judges so who cares.
I think that is a big part of it. To be a Republican in governance is impossible because you got Grover Norquist, Wayne LaPierre and Tucker Carlson with a gun pointed at your head from three sides making it impossible to actually govern.
Its why they couldn't come up with an alternative to Obamacare because that alternative would basically have to be a combination of subsidies and market places, which at the basic level is 75% the same thing and they spent the last 10 years calling that socialism. So in the end they voted for skinny repeals with empty promises and that has exposed them to "VOTED 10 TIMES TO GUT PREXISTING CONDITION" attacks that are demolishing the Republican Senate candidates right now.
They also failed to do anything tangible on drug prices after campaigning on it 2016.
This is a pattern of over promising beyond what it is tangibly possible (within the confines allowed by this byzantine structure of grifting pressure groups), under-delivering because reality is harsh and then facing the wrath of disappointed voters who expected more.
The right is more concerned with exterminating traitors then actually governing, it didn't work for the Soviet Union and it is not going to work for the US right.
