This Republican Senator Says Trump Needs to Hear Dissent. Will He Speak Up?

Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, had not yet been sworn in for his first term nor opened his mouth to say much of anything in public when he found himself under attack by President Trump’s most fervent supporters for the alleged sin of being insufficiently loyal.

“I’m tired of RINO Republicans running everything,” Charlie Kirk, the right-wing provocateur, declared on X, using a term that stands for “Republican in Name Only” to condemn Mr. Curtis and three other Republicans he claimed had derailed former Representative Matt Gaetz, Mr. Trump’s first pick for attorney general. “TIME TO REPLACE ALL OF THEM.”

Hundreds of calls, many of them angry, poured into Mr. Curtis’s office. Online, the alt-right branded him a “disgrace” and a “traitor.”

“In the middle of it, it feels like a storm,” he said in a recent interview in his barren, subterranean office on Capitol Hill. “But then when you sit back and evaluate it, it’s a couple hundred calls.”

Mr. Curtis, 64, a former House member and mayor who has labeled himself “normal” and made headlines for saying he’s unafraid to disagree with Mr. Trump, may be in for a similar tempest in the days to come.

All eyes are on him as a potentially critical swing vote as the Senate prepares to consider three of Mr. Trump’s more polarizing nominees. Among them is Tulsi Gabbard, whose candidacy for director of national intelligence appears to be in jeopardy after an hourslong confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Curtis, who privately met with Ms. Gabbard earlier this month, sat in on her confirmation hearing on Thursday. He told reporters afterward that her public performance left him “with more questions than answers.”

“Some of her responses, and nonresponses, created more confusion than clarity and only deepened my concerns about her judgment,” he said at the time.

It is an uncomfortable spot for a Republican who is already viewed with suspicion by Mr. Trump’s most ardent backers. But Mr. Curtis appears comfortable with the awkwardness. He says he likes to view himself as a member of the president’s “board of directors” — an adviser and partner, but not a rubber stamp.

“When I disagree with him, I’m prepared for the fact that he could be grumpy with me sometimes,” Mr. Curtis said, referring to Mr. Trump. “Done well, I think it makes him a better president.”

Since last June, when he defeated the Trump-backed candidate in a four-way primary with just under 50 percent of the vote, Mr. Curtis has stirred speculation that he may be part of a vanishingly small group of Republicans willing to break with Mr. Trump in a closely divided Senate where his party holds just a three-seat majority.

He has previously said that he’s not afraid to push back on Mr. Trump, especially on issues that are important to Utahns like access to public lands and natural resources, energy independence and countering China’s influence.

But as he enters the Senate at the dawn of a second Trump administration, where congressional Republicans are expected to fall in line with the president and an agenda they argue has a clear mandate from voters, whether Mr. Curtis will actually challenge the president on anything is unclear.

Mr. Curtis refused to back Mr. Trump in 2016 and declined to endorse him in last year’s Republican primary, but in Congress, he has seldom broken with him. He twice voted against impeaching Mr. Trump, although he led a failed effort to censure the president after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He bristles at being called a “moderate” and chuckles when people try to typecast him as aligned with his predecessor Mitt Romney, like Mr. Curtis a conservative Mormon and one who frequently sparred with Mr. Trump and voted to convict him in both of his impeachment trials.

(Mr. Gaetz, who campaigned for Mr. Curtis’s Trump-backed primary opponent, once referred to the congressman as “Mitt Romney without good hair.”)

And despite founding the House Conservative Climate Caucus and pushing his party to change its messaging on climate change, Mr. Curtis has kept quiet since the Trump administration issued several executive orders that, among other measures, freeze congressionally appropriated funds and roll back energy efficiency requirements.

“I wouldn’t regard him as someone who’s going to cause problems for President Trump’s agenda,” said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. “I’ve known him for years. John and I get along well. We’re good friends.”

Mr. Curtis’s biggest rift with Mr. Trump may be more in style than policy. On Capitol Hill, he forged alliances and friendships with even some of the most liberal Democrats, including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the former leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The pair worked together on a number of issues, including a gun safety bill that aimed to lower gun suicide rates by allowing people to voluntarily enroll in a “do not sell” list to temporarily limit their access to firearms if they’re in a mental health crisis (the bill ultimately didn’t pass). And when House Republicans tried to censure Ms. Jayapal in 2023 for remarks about Israel, Mr. Curtis called her privately to say he had her back — a gesture she said she had “deeply appreciated” from her former colleague.

“That’s what allies do,” Mr. Curtis said. “You can still be a human being.”

He said he prioritized spending time with people who “radically disagree” with him and showing them respect rather than proselytizing his own views. (He did enough of that, Mr. Curtis said, as a 19-year-old missionary in Taiwan.) These days, he regularly holds town halls even in the most liberal parts of his state, such as the city of Moab near Arches National Park, where he jokes with attendees, “I know that you guys hate that you like me.”

During his years as a popular mayor of Provo, the home of his alma mater Brigham Young University, he said he had posted his cellphone number on the city website and personally fielded calls from neighbors upset about barking dogs, unfilled potholes and late garbage pickup. When it snowed, Mr. Curtis would hop on his four-wheeler and plow his neighbors’ driveways — a service he says he still performs if it snows while he’s home.

And he vigorously shook hands with so many employees and constituents that he developed a repetitive motion injury in his right thumb and was told by his doctor that he had to wear a brace. After moving to Washington, Mr. Curtis underwent joint reconstruction surgery and now boasts that he has the strongest handshake on Capitol Hill.

He’s also known far and wide for his vast collection of colorful socks — hundreds of pairs with designs that range from modest earth-toned stripes to Ritz cracker logos and other wild patterns. On his colleagues’ birthdays, he gives them a pair handpicked to fit their style and personality.

In the Senate, Mr. Curtis has spent his first weeks trying to remain neutral. He has met with nearly all of Mr. Trump’s major cabinet picks, but has refrained from signaling any early support, instead promising only to “carefully evaluate” their qualifications to make sure they measure up. Still, his official Senate social media account is replete with pictures of him, often wearing one of his signature brightly colored neckties, grinning widely alongside nominees like Ms. Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump’s choice for health secretary.

But his refusal to swing in line has gotten Mr. Curtis in trouble with Trump world.

Just two weeks after Election Day, he found himself at the center of an internet firestorm after Mr. Kirk’s post.

Mr. Curtis has denied having torpedoed Mr. Gaetz, noting that he had not yet made up his mind about how to vote on his prospective nomination and speculating that the former Florida congressman had made it all up.

But the damage was done. He received a torrent of online abuse to go with a barrage of calls to his office. About half pleaded with him to oppose Mr. Gaetz, and the rest pushed him to fall in line and support Mr. Trump’s choice. Mr. Curtis insisted the frenzy didn’t bother him, adding that he tried to spend as little time as possible online and left his social media accounts to his staff.

Still, he said the Gaetz situation was “unfortunate” because Mr. Romney’s supporters cited it as proof that he would vote like his predecessor, while Mr. Trump’s circle took it as a sign that he was an enemy.

“It’s just not that simple,” he said.

Mr. Curtis also received thousands of calls and emails pressing him to support Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, even as some opponents privately hoped they could persuade Mr. Curtis to join them in voting “no.” But despite a last-minute affidavit from Mr. Hegseth’s former sister-in-law that described him as “abusive” toward his second wife, Mr. Curtis stuck with the decision he announced more than a week earlier and voted to confirm the combat veteran and former Fox News host.

“There’s a good lesson to be learned that it’s never over until it’s over,” Mr. Curtis said of the late-breaking allegations. “And so that information was important to me.”

Still, he said that the lack of corroboration from Mr. Hegseth’s ex-wife kept him from changing his vote, and that he was “comfortable” with his decision.

Senate Democrats are still feeling out Mr. Curtis to determine whether he is, in fact, a potential ally on some key issues.

“I just don’t know enough about him to answer for certain,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat as minority whip. “I just introduced myself to him the other day. First time I’ve met him.”

Several of Mr. Curtis’s former Democratic House colleagues praised him as a good person who looks for common ground.

“If you think of the 60 votes you need to get anything done in the Senate, if I were a Democrat, I think he’d be one of the first people I’d approach,” said Representative Scott Peters, a California Democrat who worked with Mr. Curtis on several bills in the House. “He’ll give you a fair hearing.”

Yet even his allies doubt he will be a frequent defector.

“I don’t know necessarily how often John’s going to vote with them,” said former Representative Alan Lowenthal, another California Democrat who forged a close friendship with Mr. Curtis after they initially butted heads over the federal government’s role in environmental conservation policy. “But he’ll listen.”

Gary Winterton, a former Provo city councilor and a close confidante of Mr. Curtis’s, said his friend often laments how colleagues who are so cordial in private can turn around and make scathing remarks on the chamber floor or in TV interviews.

“I don’t know how long he’ll be a senator; he may be a one-term senator like Mitt Romney,” Mr. Winterton said. “It’s going to be harder for him to navigate the politics rather than the policies.”