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For the first time in his second term, President Donald Trump was confronted by his fellow Republicans. And he fell in line.

Rather than face a massive defection of Republican votes in the House, Trump flipped to support a bill to force the Department of Justice to release non-classified files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The flip-flop was a long time coming. The House of Representatives stayed out of session for more than a month during the government shutdown, which helped to shield Trump from this vote. After Trump ultimately endorsed the bill he had previously opposed, there was near-unanimity when the House voted on it Tuesday.

It now appears to be on a glide path to Trump’s desk.

It’s not clear that Trump will appear in the remainder of the files as he did in emails from Epstein’s estate released by the House Oversight Committee last week. But it’s definitely clear that Trump has no interest in continuing to talk about Epstein. When a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office Tuesday why he doesn’t just release the files, he shot back that she was a bad reporter.

“Quiet, piggy,” was how he sternly reacted with a pointed finger to another reporter last week on Air Force One when she asked about the Epstein files.

The argument that seems to have convinced Republicans to break with Trump on releasing the Epstein files and vote was best expressed by Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who has tangled with the administration on multiple issues.

“The deal for Republicans on this vote is that Trump will protect you if you vote the wrong way,” Massie told CNN’s Manu Raju last week. “In other words, if you vote to cover up for pedophiles, you’ve got cover in a Republican primary. But I would remind my colleagues that this vote is gonna be on your record for longer than Trump is gonna be president.”

Pair that sentiment with Trump’s recent acknowledgment that he will not be on the ballot in 2028, which means he won’t be president in 2029, and you have the makings of a lame-duck presidency.

There are other issues dividing the GOP, as CNN’s Aaron Blake noted Tuesday. In addition to the Epstein files, Republicans are grousing about Trump’s foreign focus; his apparent lack of understanding of the issue of affordability and how it relates to his tariff policy; the destruction of the White House East Wing; and the way his family is appearing to enrich itself.

Pretty much all of these issues were on display at Trump’s Oval Office appearance Monday, when he sat next to and defended Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

None of this means that Republican lawmakers are going to turn on Trump en masse in the near future. But it does mean you will hear that term, lame duck, with more frequency.

Believe it or not, “lame duck” is a technical term in US politics. Historians in both the House and Senate track lame-duck terms.

To them, it refers to a politician in the period after their successor has been elected, but before that person is sworn in. The outgoing politician still technically has power, but is no longer really accountable to voters.

From a technical standpoint, no. US voters will vote twice before Trump leaves office: in midterms next year and the general election to replace him in 2028. His presidency will play a factor in both of those elections. The government will have to be funded each year, and natural disasters and other events will require leadership.

But the term also has a more colloquial meaning that refers to anyone who can’t be reelected. That included Trump starting on Day 1 of his second term. But his superpower in recent years has been his hold over the Republican Party. That power, at least in theory, will fade a smidge every time he asks Republican lawmakers to do something voters will not like.

Just because a president is losing power does not mean there is nothing important going on. The ultimate lame-duck disaster occurred in 1860, after the election of Abraham Lincoln but before he was sworn in. That’s when Southern states started seceding from the union, starting with South Carolina in December.

George W. Bush ushered in a bailout to the financial system during the Great Recession just before his successor, Barack Obama, was elected.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1933 in part to shorten the length of lame-duck sessions. Originally, in the pre-modern horse-and-buggy era, unless the president called Congress into session earlier, lawmakers would not convene for a new Congress until 13 months after Election Day.

There’s a lot more time than that — a little less than 36 months — until the next presidential election.

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill on Tuesday to demand that the Justice Department release all of its investigation files on Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who was a one-time friend to President Trump.

The only member to vote “no” was Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana. Two other Republicans and three Democrats did not vote.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where members will vote on whether to send the measure to President Trump to be signed.

How Every Member Voted

Alas, dear penny, you served us well.

We picked you up, you gave us luck.

We gave you to others in exchange for their thoughts.

And remember when we pondered whether dropping you from the Empire State Building could kill a pedestrian? That was fun. (More on that later.)

Now you are dead — but not gone (more on that later, too) — at the wizened age of 232. When polished, you look as young as when you were first minted, but you are worth less to us now, and we’ve moved on to greater expenses. The nation once used you to pay Union soldiers in the Civil War; now, you barely buy a gumball (and only in bulk!).

Like nearly all Americans, you descended from an immigrant, the British penny. Those coins were once so valuable that they were split into halves and even quarters — your late British cousins, the halfpenny and the farthing. In Britain, the coin’s history goes back to the time when kings and queens had names like Offa and Cynethryth and Aethelred the Unready, and your name likely traces its lineage from the German for pan — pfanne, for pan, which evolved to pfennig, for penny.

The first one-cent coin in the United States rolled off a private mint in 1787 and wasn’t called a penny. It was the fugio cent — fugio for “fly away” in Latin, signifying time flies. The 100% copper coin was inscribed with the surprising words, “mind your business,” more a take on “penny wise, pound foolish” than an admonition against nosiness.

A child could buy bubble gum for a penny in 1975. You’d have to buy in bulk to get that rate today.

Peter Keegan/Keystone/Getty Images

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The U.S. minted its first official penny in 1793. Abraham Lincoln was pictured on the coin starting in 1909, to honor the centennial of his birth, the first time a president’s image graced U.S. currency. The words “In God We Trust” were added at the same time. Ever the trailblazer, you, the humble penny, were the first to carry those words before Congress added it to all currency and made it the national motto almost a half-century later.

Now, at just 2.5% copper and the rest zinc, you can’t even beat the cost of your own production, according to the U.S. Mint, which says it took 3.69 of you to make only one more in 2024.

Although we shall not meet any new pennies, we know you will hang around for another 30 years or so, because that’s the typical lifespan of a coin, according to the U.S. Treasury.

So, luckily for us, we’ll still have the perfect coins to put in our penny loafers in the 2050s, when we can expect them to cycle back in style. (In the 1930s, young people put money in their shoes for emergency pay phone calls, and thus the Weejun was born. Maybe someone will design a stylish cellphone shoe before the penny disappears?)

Meanwhile, you live on in other ways. We will most certainly celebrate you aphoristically, and this is where the penny drops. We will always be in for a penny, in for a pound. We will proudly trade pennies for thoughts while continuing to give our own two cents’ worth. We will still pinch you, because a penny saved is, as ever, a penny earned. We will put a shiny penny in a bride’s shoe for luck.

James Geary, author of The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism, says the penny is the perfect coin for these little pearls of wisdom.

“The penny lends itself to aphorisms because they are both small — the aphorism is the shortest form of literature, and the penny is the smallest monetary denomination,” Geary says.

Yes, you are small but mighty. Yet we will never kill anything with you, from the Empire State or any other tall building. Your dimensions — three-quarters of an inch thick and weighing less than a tenth of an ounce — are better suited to flipping and fluttering in the air than reaching fatal velocity.

As the Mythbusters demonstrated, the penny-drop myth isn’t worth a dime. But, at 10 cents, the dime is at least profitable to mint.

Along with the dime, your survivors include the nickel and the quarter.

Rest well, sweet penny.