By Aaron Blake

Almost three weeks have passed since the US election and the new president-elect, Donald Trump is already testing the limits of both the American people and the Republican Party.

He has challenged GOP senators with unorthodox and controversial Cabinet picks and even argued that he should be able to appoint them without Senate approval. And some in Trump’s party have essentially agreed that the party should do whatever Trump wants because he won the 2024 election.

“Whatever this is, we have to embrace it,” recently stated Troy Edwin Nelsthe US representative for Texas’ 22nd congressional district. “All this. Every word” he underlined.

But it’s clearly not what the American people want. And above all, it doesn’t even seem to be what the Republicans themselves want.

New poll shows Americans are clear on that and most Republicans they want to control Trump – even as an extraordinary percentage of the Republican Party aligns with Nels’ sentiment.

Polls show Trump benefiting from a honeymoon. Americans say they approve of his presidential transition so far, and a majority are at least somewhat optimistic about the next four years. They’re even leaning in favor of some of his controversial cabinet picks (aside from Matt Gage who stepped down last week).

But that doesn’t mean they want Congress, or even congressional Republicans, to bend to Trump’s will.

A CBS News-YouGov poll this weekend, for example, shows that three-quarters of Americans disagree with Trump’s claim that he should be able to appoint heads of government agencies without hearings or without Senate approval. And a majority of Republicans say the Senate should hold hearings and vote on whether to confirm those leaders.

Crucially, the poll asked this question in two different ways. In half the sample the question had a footnote that the Constitution gives the Senate the power of advice and consent—that the Senate is constitutionally charged with confirming or rejecting a nominee. In the other half, however, he did not provide this footnote. But the end result was basically the same no matter how the question was asked.

While 75% disagreed that Trump should be able to unilaterally appoint people when the Constitution was referenced in the footnote, 76% disagreed when the footnote was not. As for Republicans who oppose Trump, they reached 53% when the Constitution was invoked and 55% when it was not.

But it is also perceived that Americans – even Republicans – they want Congress to stand up to Trump when they disagree.

The poll asked Americans directly whether congressional Republicans should “support whatever Donald Trump wants,” as Troy Edwin Nels says, or whether they should support his policies when they agree “but reject them when they disagree ».

The split was similar. The Americans declared from 77% to 23% that congressional Republicans should be rejecting something when they disagree with Trump’s policies. So did Republicans, who favored a percent rejection 56-44%.

The fact that nearly half of Republicans support the view that the Senate should be bypassed on Trump’s Cabinet picks, and say that congressional Republicans should just compromise whatever Trump wants — is remarkable. And that reinforces the fact that much of the party doesn’t care terribly much about constitutional checks on Trump, which many other polls show.

That fact seems important as we head toward a series of clashes between Trump and Republicans who might dare to oppose him on issues such as his Cabinet picks and some of his more controversial proposals. It’s clear that a significant and vociferous segment of the party just wants Congress to bow to Trump. But this is far from a consensus point of view.

*Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter writing for The Fix. A native of Minnesota, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.