WOW – JOHN THUNE LEARNS FATE AMID SENATE LEADERSHIP ELECTION
Trump Declines to Back John Thune for Another Term - But Senate Republicans Say the Leadership Choice Is Theirs
The president is frustrated over the filibuster and the stalled SAVE America Act. Thune's colleagues are signaling that disagreement with Trump does not automatically translate into a leadership revolt.
President Donald Trump has spent weeks pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune to deliver more of his agenda before the midterm elections.
Now that pressure has reached the question of Thune's own future as Republican leader.
In an interview with Punchbowl News, Trump declined to endorse Thune for another term after the November elections, while stopping short of saying he would oppose him or support a challenger.
"I don't want to get into that necessarily," Trump said when asked whether he would back Thune for another term.
He then offered a more mixed assessment.
"I get along with him. It's unfortunate that he doesn't have the votes," Trump said.
"John's trying. He's trying hard. I really believe that. But if he doesn't get there, it would be unfortunate."
That is a warning.
It is not yet a presidential endorsement of someone else.
The distinction matters because the conflict between Trump and Thune is real, but the power relationship is different from the one Trump has with many House Republicans.
Senate Republican leaders are chosen by Republican senators themselves in a closed conference election, traditionally by secret ballot.
Trump can pressure senators, criticize Thune publicly and endorse an alternative if one emerges.
He does not directly choose the Senate Republican leader.
Several Republican senators are making that point openly.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said there is broad respect inside the conference for how Thune has handled a difficult job.
"There's a lot of respect for John Thune. There's a lot of recognition of how he works and how difficult his job is and a belief that he's doing it really well under difficult circumstances," Moran said.
Moran also drew a line between senators cooperating with the president on policy and surrendering control over their own internal leadership decision.
"I also think there are some things where the Senate seems willing to accede their privileges, but I think who our leader is, there's a real sense that that belongs to us," he said.
That is the strongest political protection Thune currently has.
Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party.
But the senators who will decide Thune's leadership future are signaling that their private conference election is not simply another presidential endorsement contest.
The immediate dispute centers on the SAVE America Act and the Senate filibuster.
Trump has demanded that the Senate remain in Washington until it passes the voting legislation and has repeatedly urged Republicans to eliminate the legislative filibuster if necessary.
The SAVE America Act would impose documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements for federal voter registration along with additional federal voter-identification rules.
Supporters describe the proposal as an election-integrity measure.
Opponents argue that its documentation requirements could burden eligible citizens and disrupt long-established federal registration procedures.
Thune's problem is not simply that Democrats oppose the bill.
The legislation has also lacked sufficient support inside the Republican conference to guarantee passage even before the Senate reaches the normal 60-vote threshold needed to end debate on most legislation.
The Associated Press reported that the full SAVE America Act did not have enough Republican support before senators left for the August recess.
Republicans did attempt to advance a narrower voter-ID proposal before leaving Washington.
That measure failed to clear the Senate, largely along party lines with Democrats opposed.
That reality is why Thune has resisted Trump's demand to abolish the filibuster.
The president's argument is simple: Republicans could use a majority vote to eliminate the procedural barrier and then move a long list of priorities with fewer Democratic votes.
Thune's answer is equally direct.
He says Republicans do not have the votes inside their own conference to eliminate the legislative filibuster.
"If the endgame is, we actually get an outcome or result, we could stay here until Christmas," Thune said during the recess fight.
"But Democrats aren't voting for this, I'm just telling you. And the Republicans are not getting rid of the legislative filibuster."
The standoff has created an unusual dynamic.
Some of the same conservative senators who wanted Thune to cancel the August recess are still defending him as leader.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., has been one of the strongest advocates for keeping the Senate in session to work on the voting bill.
But when asked about the pressure on Thune, Scott emphasized the difficulty of the job rather than calling for a new leader.
"It's a hard job, it's really a hard job," Scott said.
He also noted that frustration between presidents and Senate leaders is hardly unusual when a president discovers that the chamber cannot immediately pass every item on his agenda.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., likewise said he has seen no sign of an organized internal effort to remove Thune.
"I think the president and John like each other. I think these are tough issues and they obviously disagree over things like the filibuster," Kennedy said.
That assessment fits Trump's own language.
The president has criticized Thune's results and refused, for now, to offer an endorsement for another leadership term.
He has also said Thune is trying hard and that the two men get along.
That makes the current dispute materially different from an outright break.
Trump has not announced a preferred replacement.
No Republican senator has publicly launched a campaign to challenge Thune for the leadership post.
And the senators speaking publicly about the issue are largely describing Thune as secure rather than endangered.
The disagreement is nevertheless becoming more politically expensive as the midterms approach.
Trump told Punchbowl that Republican voters are angry with congressional Republicans even if they remain supportive of him.
"They're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me," Trump said while questioning whether some of his voters will turn out when his own name is not on the ballot.
Kennedy pushed back on the idea that voter frustration belongs only to congressional Republicans.
"I think Republicans are angry at all of us, I mean the voters. I think the voters are angry, period," he said.
Kennedy argued that the cost of living is likely to matter more to many voters than an internal Washington fight over Senate procedure.
That point helps explain why Thune has defended the Senate's broader record rather than treating the SAVE America Act as the only measure of success.
Before leaving for recess, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general, passed major Russia sanctions legislation and approved a bipartisan stopgap funding package intended to keep the government open beyond the midterm elections.
Those were significant legislative victories.
They did not include the voting bill Trump wanted most urgently.
Thune acknowledged that limitation as senators prepared to leave Washington.
"I think we've had a really productive run," he said.
He added that some priorities had always been difficult or effectively impossible under the existing vote count, specifically pointing to the SAVE America Act and eliminating the filibuster.
"That's the reality I have to deal with," Thune said.
"We'll keep grinding away and let the chips fall where they may."
That is the core difference between the president's position and the Senate leader's.
Trump is judging the chamber by whether Republican priorities ultimately become law.
Thune is judging his options by whether enough senators are willing to vote for them under the rules that currently govern the chamber.
Neither side is pretending the disagreement does not exist.
The filibuster makes the conflict especially difficult because eliminating it would be a structural change rather than a one-time vote on the SAVE America Act.
Republicans who oppose changing the rule are not necessarily opposing Trump's voting proposal.
Many argue that a 51-vote Senate would also allow a future Democratic majority to pass major legislation without Republican support.
Trump's counterargument is that Democrats would eliminate the filibuster themselves when politically useful and that Republicans are wasting the power they currently hold.
That debate has existed inside both parties for years.
Trump has now turned it into a direct test of Thune's leadership.
The next step is not a public election involving Republican primary voters.
After the midterms, Republican senators are expected to choose their conference leadership for the next Congress.
That is where Thune's support will actually be measured.
A presidential endorsement could influence individual senators.
A presidential refusal to endorse could matter as well.
But the ballots belong to the senators.
That helps explain why Moran's comments are more important than they may initially sound.
Republican senators frequently defer to Trump on candidates, policy and political strategy.
Leadership of the Senate conference is one of the areas where they still regard themselves as the final authority.
For now, the evidence does not show an organized rebellion against Thune.
It shows something more complicated.
Trump is withholding an endorsement and escalating pressure on a Senate leader who has refused to promise outcomes he says the votes cannot deliver.
Conservative senators share some of Trump's frustration with the pace of the agenda.
At the same time, those senators are not translating that frustration into a public campaign to replace Thune.
So Trump's latest comments settled one issue.
John Thune cannot assume he will receive the president's automatic endorsement for another term as Republican leader.
What they did not settle is whether that matters enough to threaten his position.
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At the moment, the Republican senators who actually choose their leader are signaling that the disagreement over the SAVE America Act and the filibuster is not the same thing as a vote of no confidence in Thune.
The real test will come after November, behind the closed doors of the Senate Republican Conference.
