Speaking to the three top House Republican leaders over the past three days at the House GOP retreat here in Doral, Fla., revealed how President Trump is both the glue holding the fragile majority together and an earthquake that threatens to fracture it.

Holding the retreat at a Trump property threatens to ignite the same kind of criticism that dogged Trump’s first term: that he has sought to personally profit from his public position.

Trump’s move to pause all federal grants and loans is a “legitimate exercise of executive oversight,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who is often considered an institutionalist who has insisted upon the importance of Congressional power. “I don’t think putting a hold on things is extraordinary.”