National political journalists are beating a path to John Thune’s door since his recent elevation to U.S. Senate majority leader. He has responded with refreshingly boring interviews, including on Sunday’s episodes of “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press.”
Political junkies aren’t bored. They’re parsing every word he says about the filibuster, Cabinet nominees, border security, taxes and the national debt.
But to the average person who’s grown accustomed to Trump-era politics, Thune’s civility may sound a bit dull. His Sunday interviews did not include any name-calling, any assertion of “alternative facts,” or any demonization of the opposing party or the media.
That’s a good thing. When the political pot is boiling over, somebody should turn down the heat. Maybe an old-fashioned Republican from South Dakota is the right guy for the job.
Of course, he’ll soon be counteracted by a new-fashioned Republican from his own state. That’s South Dakota governor and next secretary of the federal Department of Homeland Security (pending Senate confirmation), Kristi Noem. Her recent book, “No Going Back,” showed exactly how un-Thune-like she is, with her sensational disclosures about fatally shooting a dog and a goat and her retracted tale of meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The controversy generated by those portions of the book obscured Noem’s central message. She thinks outrageous antics like Trump’s are the right way to do politics now and forevermore and that drama-averse politicians like Thune — although she didn’t single him out specifically — are ineffectual relics.
Meanwhile, some Americans who still hope there’s a chance of “going back” to a more civil brand of pre-Trump politics are investing a lot of hope in Thune. He has inspired some of that hope with answers to questions like the one Margaret Brennan of “Face the Nation” asked him about Trump.
“Will you tell him when you think he’s wrong?” Brennan asked.
“I will,” Thune said.
Before Democrats and moderate Republicans anoint Thune as their savior, they’ll want to consider the rest of his response: “And I think my job is to do everything I can to help him achieve success.”
Thune often gives a dual answer to questions about Trump. What he seems to be signaling is that he’s willing to stand against the worst of the president-elect’s potential transgressions against the Constitution, the rule of law and common decency. But as he made clear to Brennan, Thune has “the same set of objectives” as Trump on a lot of policy matters.
All of that means Thune has a tricky path to navigate, because he’s likely to be criticized as insufficiently devoted to Trump and insufficiently opposed to him, sometimes simultaneously. Consider Thune’s response to Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” when she asked if he supports Trump’s pledge to pardon people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“That’s ultimately going to be a decision that President Trump is going to have to make,” Thune said, adding that he’s focused on the future and not “looking in the rearview mirror.”
Welker tried one more time, asking what message it would send if Trump pardons people who attacked police officers. Again, Thune evaded. “The pardon authority exists with him,” Thune said before pivoting to other topics.
It was a typically Thune response: careful, reserved, and mindful of the unforeseen consequences of saying too much. He’s always been like that, which is why it’s important to consider what he doesn’t say.
He didn’t say he supports pardoning Jan. 6 rioters. Similarly, when Brennan and Welker asked about the fate of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, Thune did not pledge unconditional support for all of them but said he’ll give them a fair confirmation process in the Senate. When asked if he supports or thinks it’s realistic to carry out Trump’s plan to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally, Thune didn’t say yes. He spoke of starting with deportations for unauthorized immigrants who’ve committed crimes or have pending deportation orders.
And when Welker asked Thune to describe the state of his relationship with Trump, he didn’t say it was good. He said it’s “evolving.”
That was a response loaded with baggage including Thune’s call for Trump to drop out of the 2016 presidential race after the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, and Trump’s later attempt at convincing Noem to challenge Thune in a primary election.
If Thune wants any meaningful legislation signed into law in the next several years, his relationship with Trump will have to keep evolving.
Let’s just hope, for the sake of South Dakota and the country, that Thune’s political style never evolves too far from the civility he displayed in his first major broadcast television interviews as majority leader.
