It’s becoming increasingly obvious that, despite a 53-47 Republican majority, the U.S. Senate is a graveyard for President Trump’s agenda. This is largely the fault of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who has never been a strong supporter of the President. Despite this, most Republicans hoped that Thune would work to advance Trump’s priorities, particularly after his decisive 2024 victory provided the momentum for the GOP to retake the Senate. But Thune’s refusal to get the SAVE America Act passed and his surrender to the Democrats on DHS funding — without additional money for ICE or CPB — dashed any hope that this man has the right stuff to be Senate Majority Leader.
President Trump and House Republicans have tried to be patient with Thune’s inertia, but that is over with. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has done everything in his power to work with the Majority Leader on the SAVE America Act, sent a clear signal to him during a Fox News interview with Kayleigh McEnany on Saturday: “If you don’t want to fight fires, don’t become a firefighter. If you don’t want to take grueling votes at difficult hours and sometimes have to work longer than you want to, then maybe you shouldn’t become a United States Senator.” Also on Fox News, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) was far more explicit about how Senator Thune should be dealt with:
Obviously, the leadership in the Senate — and that’s on both sides of the aisle — has a real disgust for this President and House leadership because they didn’t even have the guts to call speaker Mike Johnson and let him know what happened … The stereotype of Congress is, and it’s well deserved, is that we pass stuff in the dark of night because we don’t have any guts, and that’s clearly what’s shown in the Senate leadership. I think they need to get some new leadership over there, in my opinion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to the Senate’s DHS funding bill in the following terms: “This gambit that was done last night is a joke.” He then read the excerpt of the bill that cuts ICE and CPB funding and emphatically stated, “We’re not doing that! And it is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at 3 o’clock in the morning and try to foist this on the American people.” It’s understandable that Johnson would be reluctant to attack Thune but it was the Majority Leader who added the bill-killing amendment to the DHS bill according to a report in the New York Times. Yet this is how Thune described the garbage he dumped on the House as he hastily scurried out of town early Friday morning:
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