President Donald Trump won’t stop needling Senate Majority Leader John Thune, no matter how much it splinters Republicans.
The president is heaping demands on Thune as the Senate GOP looks to head home for August and try to shore up its increasingly fragile majority. Thune says much of what Trump wants is not attainable, but the presidential pressure is unrelenting.
And many of Thune’s members are resisting Trump, too — a hangover from the president’s past bouts with three Republican senators he prodded into retirement or defeat.
Much of the ongoing clash stems from the voter ID bill known as SAVE America. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., are rallying as many Republican senators as they can to push for canceling recess to try to pass it. Their push isn’t working, since most senators agree with Thune that the legislation lacks majority support.
The impasse got even more tense on Wednesday, as Trump insisted that Thune has the votes and the plainspoken South Dakotan replied: “That must be a different form of math.”
Asked about Thune’s assessment that Trump needs to show him a path to victory on voter ID if he’s going to keep his vulnerable incumbents off the campaign trail in August, Trump said: “That’s too bad for him. Too bad for the Republican Party.”
Most senators say Thune’s support in his conference is rock-solid, although some Republicans privately believe he could face a quixotic challenger to his leadership come November if Trump doesn’t cool off. Trump said on Wednesday that “we’re gonna find out” if Thune is the man for the job.
“The president’s frustrated. The base is frustrated,” one Republican senator told Semafor. “And I don’t see a clear resolution or anything that comes out of this that’s favorable for anybody.”
Thune’s job, in Trump’s mind at least, includes killing the filibuster (which also lacks the support of 50 Republicans) and finding a way to pass the voter ID bill. Trump also wants Thune to approve a budget setting up a party-line spending bill, which Thune is unsure can pass and would expose all his vulnerable incumbents to politically tough symbolic votes.
On top of that, Trump wants a debt ceiling increase, which Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called a “heavy lift” on Wednesday.
“Right now we don’t have 50,” Thune said on Wednesday morning when asked if the House’s budget can pass the Senate. After hearing from White House budget director Russ Vought on Wednesday afternoon, Thune’s tune had not changed: “I’m certainly open to doing it. But that [a path to success has] to be proven, and we’re not there yet.”
That’s the type of unvarnished truth Thune has told Trump behind the scenes and increasingly in public. He said this week that the White House knows from its own whip count that more than a dozen Republicans oppose killing the filibuster.
Even as Thune prepares to push through more of Trump’s nominees, the president whacked him for not letting him make recess appointments: “WHERE IS JOHN THUNE?” read one recent Trump post about a practice that hasn’t been used in nearly 15 years.
Administration officials said there is a real rift between Trump and Thune. “The president is clearly frustrated with Thune but there aren’t a ton of options in terms of how to deal with the current situation,” said a person familiar with the president’s thinking.
But Thune’s members take no issue with him telling Trump what is, and is not, possible.
“The Senate has to act as an independent body,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the most senior senator.
If there’s a challenge brewing for Thune in November, no one is putting their cards on the table yet. Scott told Semafor he supports Thune and is “not planning to run for leader” again, having run twice before.
Lee, who is fueling the last-minute push for some action on the SAVE America Act before recess, said he did not want to comment on Thune’s doubts about canceling recess other than to say “conversations are ongoing.”
The Utahn recently indicated that his leadership vote could be contingent on how Thune treats the ID bill. Asked directly if his vote could be affected by the leader’s decisionmaking in the coming days, Lee said: “We’ll see.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, who is close to Trump, wants a vote on a House-passed bill twinning voter ID with a stock ban for members of Congress to unify the GOP before August and isolate Democrats. Moreno is confident in Thune’s leadership: “He’s a great guy.”
Thune’s Senate stewardship is a stark contrast to the House, where Trump partners with Speaker Mike Johnson to twist enough arms to consistently pass big bills over the complaints of GOP holdouts.
Trump’s second term kicked off similarly in the Senate, with plenty of unorthodox Cabinet nominees getting confirmed. But he’s failed to reshape the Senate completely. And his grip on it has loosened over time.
Republicans have rejected Trump’s overtures to kill the filibuster and get rid of home-state senators’ veto power over judicial nominees. The president’s battles with Thune’s members over the past 18 months have created more than a half-dozen Republicans who simply can’t be moved by the president these days.
With a 53-seat majority, that’s a huge problem.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have both had their moments opposing Trump’s agenda, as has retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Add them to the trio Trump has tangled with most directly — Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas — and the GOP majority simply won’t bend to the president’s will.
Cassidy said the demands on Thune are nonsensical: “Why would you cancel the recess when you don’t have the votes?” He’s also said he’s still scrutinizing Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, whom Tillis and Cornyn have threatened to vote against over Trump’s audit immunity deal.
