President Trump pulled his endorsement of Rep. Jeff Hurd on Saturday and threw his full support behind Hurd's primary challenger, Hope Scheppelman, the former Colorado GOP vice chair. The reason: Hurd sided with Democrats to undercut the president's tariff agenda.
Trump announced the move on Truth Social, calling Hurd a "RINO" and framing the decision as a direct consequence of disloyalty on trade policy:
"Based of a lack of support, in particular for the unbelievably successful TARIFFS imposed on Foreign Countries and Companies which has made America Richer, Stronger, Bigger, and Better than ever before, I am hereby WITHDRAWING my Endorsement of RINO Congressman Jeff Hurd, of Colorado's 3rd District, and fully Endorsing Highly Respected Patriot, Hope Scheppelman, to take his place in Congress."
Hurd and Scheppelman now face off in the June 30 GOP primary for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District. If the precedent of Mo Brooks is any guide, losing Trump's endorsement is not a survivable event. Brooks, the former Alabama congressman Trump once backed and then slammed as "woke" and disloyal, ultimately lost to Katie Britt in the 2022 Republican primary after Trump switched his support.
Earlier this month, Hurd was one of six House Republicans who crossed the aisle to join Democrats in passing a resolution to repeal Trump's tariffs on Canada. The resolution sought to terminate the national emergency the president had invoked to justify the trade action.
Six Republicans. Out of the entire House conference. That's the margin of defection Trump is dealing with, small enough to be manageable, but large enough to hand Democrats a messaging victory on trade.
Hurd defended his vote on X, wrapping his opposition in constitutional language:
"If we normalize broad emergency trade powers today, we should expect that a future president, of either party, will rely on the same authority in ways many of us would strongly oppose. Institutional consistency matters. The Constitution does not shift depending on who occupies the White House. My responsibility is to defend the separation of powers regardless of political convenience."
It's a tidy argument, the kind that reads well in a Federalist Society brief. But it lands differently when you're a Republican congressman actively undermining the trade leverage your own president is using to renegotiate deals that have bled American industry for decades. Hurd isn't wrong that emergency powers deserve scrutiny. He's wrong about the moment he chose to make that stand.
The timing of Trump's endorsement withdrawal isn't incidental. Just a day earlier, the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of Trump's tariffs in a 6-3 decision, ruling that his expanded use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded his authority. The president has since introduced a new universal 15 percent tariff on imports from countries around the globe, a move that signals he has no intention of retreating on trade.
This is the context Hurd's vote occupies. The president absorbed a judicial blow and immediately pivoted to a new tariff framework. Meanwhile, Hurd had already handed Democrats the bipartisan cover they needed to claim Republican opposition to the tariff agenda. Trump made clear he views that as a betrayal of American economic interests:
"Congressman Hurd is one of a small number of Legislators who have let me and our Country down. He is more interested in protecting Foreign Countries that have been ripping us off for decades than he is the United States of America."
Trump acknowledged the weight of the decision, noting it was only the second time he had pulled back an endorsement:
"Taking back an Endorsement is a difficult decision for me."
He followed that with characteristic directness:
"These are the decisions that must be made, however, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
The rarity of the move is itself the message. Trump isn't running a purge. He's making a targeted example, and the target is a congressman who chose to side with the opposition on the single issue where the president has drawn his clearest line.
There's a version of Republican politics where Hurd's constitutional argument carries real weight. Conservatives have spent years warning about executive overreach, and those concerns don't evaporate because the president has an R next to his name. Fair enough. But there's a difference between raising concerns within the conference and voting with Nancy Pelosi's successors to gut your own president's negotiating position. Hurd chose the latter.
Trump had already taken to social media earlier to caution Republicans about the political consequences of opposing tariffs. Hurd apparently didn't get the message, or got it and didn't care.
Hope Scheppelman now carries the Trump endorsement into a primary that will test whether Colorado's 3rd District values institutional process arguments or results-oriented trade policy. The district's voters will decide if Hurd's constitutional stand was principled courage or political miscalculation.
Mo Brooks could tell him how that usually ends.
