As negotiations on a coronavirus economic stimulus package that could top $1 trillion intensified Wednesday, there was early bipartisan leadership agreement on this much:
When the bill is ready for a vote, the senators and House members will cast their ballots in person at the Capitol — just as they've always done for 231 years.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi in flatly rejecting the idea that democracy is best served during a pandemic by permitting the legislative branch to disappear from Washington, with lawmakers permitted to legislate with extreme social distancing — including voting for or against legislation by phone or online.
A growing group of members, from younger, tech-savvy House Democrats to a handful of self-quarantined Senate Republicans, have pressed for Congress to break with two centuries of tradition and allow remote decision-making at least until the spread of the novel coronavirus is under control.
They point to the government's warnings against large groups spending time together on aircraft or in the same rooms, saying their presence in Washington may soon imperil the collective health of Congress.
"If we're telling people to do their work from home when possible, teleconferencing as opposed to being physically present, what are we doing to achieve the same thing?" Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said Tuesday on the Senate floor.
Later in the day, McConnnell emphatically rejected the argument that senators should be permitted to vote electronically from wherever they might be.
"We'll not be doing that," he said at a news conference where reporters' attendance was limited to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. He suggested that the period for votes, when the rules require senators to appear in the chamber for at least a few seconds to give a thumbs up or thumbs down, could be extended far beyond the customary 15 minutes to allow senators to appear in small groups rather than all at once.
"We will deal with the social distancing issue without fundamentally changing Senate rules," said McConnell, who is keeping the Senate in session until its work on the economic stimulus legislation is done.
The House is now in recess, with most members back in their home districts, until the measure is ready for debate. Before lawmakers left town, Pelosi made clear they would be recalled when it was time to legislate and that remote voting was not an option.
As a practical matter, there is no secure congressional technology to support such a switch. Beyond that, lawmakers would be subject to criticism that they were shirking their responsibilities to shape policies — especially in a time of crisis — and a disconnected legislative branch would risk ceding even more authority, power and limelight to President Trump.
Supporters say remote voting would reduce infections at a Capitol where the average age of House members is 58 and the average age of senators is 63, with 13 of them older than 75. They also argue that keeping members out of Washington now would allow them to model the behavior the government wants the rest of country to practice.
"While Congress is an institution with a proud history, we cannot stand on tradition if it puts lives — and our ability to be the voice of our constituents — at risk," says a letter signed by 45 House members and delivered to Pelosi last week.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.