Earlier this month, President Trump gave lawmakers a week’s worth of heads-up that he was going to announce new steel and aluminum imports that Republican leaders vehemently opposed. Congress, which the Constitution gives power over tariffs, could have tried to stop it. But congressional Republicans did nothing.

Now Trump is openly attacking special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation in a way that suggests he might be trying (again) to fire Mueller. And congressional Republicans are apparently doing nothing.

The events of recent weeks have driven home what has been evident for some time — perhaps as far back as the 2016 presidential campaign — that Trump has neutered the Republican Party. Party leaders are afraid to do anything to cross him because he’s much stronger with the party’s base and has no loyalty to them. The last few weeks have demonstrated the potency of an unrestricted Trump and a party leadership that has basically no will to try to check his impulses.