Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is performing a high-wire act few Republicans on Capitol Hill have been able to manage successfully: He’s staying on good terms with President Donald Trump even as he steps up oversight of the Pentagon and its chronically embattled leader.

In just the last month, Wicker criticized a since-scrapped peace plan for the war in Ukraine, promised “vigorous oversight” of the president’s boat strikes in the Caribbean, and publicly disagreed with War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s investigation of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired Navy captain who could be court-martialed for urging service members to disobey illegal orders.