Ahead of a House vote Wednesday on whether to rein in President Donald Trump’s Iran war powers, Speaker Mike Johnson pleaded with Republicans to oppose it.

In an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, he repeatedly said it would be “dangerous” and would sap Trump of negotiating power to cut a deal to end the war.

And the thing is: Johnson had a point. Such votes signal a lack of resolve even in Trump’s own party to continue the war.

But four Republicans voted for it anyway, allowing the resolution to pass 215-208 and delivering Trump one of the biggest legislative rebukes of his presidency.

If the resolution were to pass in the Senate — where 50 of 100 senators have appeared to support it — Trump would be required to either withdraw troops from Iran or gain Congress’ approval for the war.

The White House, which has signaled it believes the underlying law is unconstitutional, could try to ignore the resolution.

But at the very least, the House vote was a striking commentary on just how much Republicans appear to be losing patience with Trump and his politically damaging war. It was a sign that a small but clearly significant number of them are less willing to give him time to try and figure a way out.

The result is that Trump is increasingly boxed in.

And that’s becoming a familiar position for the president, whose poll numbers have dropped to historic lows. With potential destruction looming for the GOP in November and as the Iran war trends towards a quagmire, Trump is losing control of what lies ahead.

Retreating on the Kennedy Center and ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

The last week has repeatedly shown how Trump is being forced to grapple with this more claustrophobic political reality.

First, there was his apparent retreat on controlling the Kennedy Center and, more significantly, his administration reversing itself on the “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate those who claim they were wronged by the Biden administration.

On the Kennedy Center, Trump responded to an adverse ruling by a federal judge Friday about his name being on the building by signaling that he would let Congress take over the performing arts center.

That’s a very un-Trump sentiment if there ever was one. This is a president who often governs as if he wishes the other branches of the federal government simply didn’t exist. Yet here he was, getting checked by the judicial branch and signaling he would just turn things over to the legislative branch.

The bigger example of Trump being boxed in, though, comes with the “anti-weaponization” fund.

In addition to another adverse court ruling there, he’s seen Senate Republicans speak out almost in unison against the idea — in a way that could threaten his other legislative priorities. They seem to fear that Trump would use the $1.776 billion as an unaccountable slush fund to reward his allies — up to and including violent January 6, 2021, defendants who assaulted police.

The situation carries echoes of Trump’s East Wing ballroom, where congressional Republicans have balked at providing money Trump has requested for what they view as a politically problematic pet project.

Trump and those around him have sent confusing signals about just how much they’ve abandoned the “anti-weaponization” fund, with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche saying the idea is dead but Trump sounding less resolved.

But there’s no question that Congress has checked Trump and limited his options in a way it rarely has — much like on his Iran war powers.

Given Trump hasn’t personally committed to dropping the fund, there is even talk about Congress potentially voting to prevent him from ever pursuing it. That kind of option has always been on the table, of course, but it’s one Republicans have been loath to reach for, for fear of inflaming Trump.

Trump’s political maneuverability is also being constrained in other ways.

Trump’s selection Tuesday of Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte as the acting director of national intelligence — despite his apparent complete lack of intelligence experience — has gone over like a lead balloon among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

And there is talk that, because of Democratic threats, Trump might be forced to back down on Pulte’s selection if he wants Congress to renew crucial spying powers — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — that are due to expire soon and were already giving Congress fits. (Democratic votes will be necessary to renew Section 702.)

Trump also suffered a significant setback in Tuesday’s primaries. After unseating three high-profile congressional incumbents and a series of Indiana GOP state senators in recent primaries, he saw his endorsed candidate, Rep. Randy Feenstra, lose the GOP gubernatorial primary in Iowa.

And some of those defeated incumbents are looking like problems for Trump in Congress now that they don’t have reelection bids to worry about — and might be understandably disillusioned.

One of them, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, continued to vote against Trump by supporting the war powers resolution on Wednesday. Two others, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, are offering increasingly unvarnished commentary, with Cassidy in particular sounding like he could be a real thorn in Trump’s side for the next few months.

(After his defeat last month, Cassidy suddenly voted to allow a war powers resolution to proceed in the Senate.)

All that is to say nothing of what’s boxing Trump in most of all: the Iran war itself.

At this point, there just doesn’t seem to be a good way out of it for the president.

He is acting as if he’s got all the time in the world to let his blockade bleed the Iranian economy and force its leaders to come crawling to him for a deal.

But there is little sign that it’s happening fast enough for Trump and his domestic political concerns. There is plenty of reason to doubt Iran would agree to anything Trump could truly sell as a good deal. And he has bluffed so many times about restarting large-scale military strikes that Tehran doesn’t seem to be taking that threat seriously anymore.

“A ceasefire there is much different than a ceasefire in other parts of the world,” Trump told reporters Wednesday as he tried to defend ongoing negotiations amid the latest exchange of fire. He even suggested some sort of deal could come together this weekend.

Of course, he’s suggested a deal was nigh many times before. And the House apparently wasn’t buying it, with those four Republicans delivering one of the most striking efforts to restrict Trump to date.

If the Senate follows suit, he’ll really find himself inside a box.