It occurs to me that maybe this was just Congressional Republicans' way of assessing the length of their tether--just how far can they go before even Trump calls them out on it? Before this, they had no idea, because nobody really knows what's in Donald Trump's head. Now, at least, they have some idea how much is too much.
I'm reminded, for some reason, of an exchange from the musical Chess:
Molokov: The man is utterly mad! You're playing a lunatic!
The Russian: That's the problem. He's a brilliant lunatic. You can't tell which way he'll jump. Like his game, he's impossible to analyze. You can't dissect him, predict him -- which of course means he's not a lunatic at all.
(It's also possible that I'm just overthinking all of this, too.)