Tensions between President Trump and Sen. John Thune have exploded into public view this week, as the president continues to pressure the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act, his package of voter restrictions, and to eliminate the filibuster, which would allow Republicans to pass the election bill with a simple majority.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that the president’s patience with the Senate Republican leader is wearing thin.
“His patience is running out. He wants to see as much of the SAVE America Act passed as possible by the August recess,” Leavitt said at a White House briefing. “The House did its job; the Senate needs to do its job, too.”
Senate Republicans simply don’t have the votes that would be needed to force a vote on the SAVE America Act or kill the filibuster. Trump has refused to accept that reality. He continues to push for a bill that would require proof of citizenship from people registering to vote in federal elections, require voter ID at polling places and dramatically reduce the use of mail-in voting. Trump’s preferred version of the bill also includes restrictions on transgender women in sports and gender-affirming care for young people.
As Trump and Republicans push their election agenda, the House on Wednesday passed a $95 billion budget blueprint that authorizes money to incentivize states to adopt the GOP’s voter measures. House Republicans also agreed to merge their election reform bill with the $1.15 trillion annual defense authorization bill they passed on Wednesday before sending the legislation to the Senate.
In a speech in Marietta, Georgia, on Wednesday, the president tore into Thune himself.
“I have to say, Mike Johnson and Congress have done a great job, but we're having a hard time in the Senate. The Senate, what they're doing is just, it's just not right,” Trump said. “It's like the Senate is a place that you send things when you want them to die.”
Trump again called for the Senate to “terminate” the filibuster, and he called on the public to join in pressuring Thune.
“Everybody call John Thune at the Senate,” Trump said. “He's the leader of the Republican Party, and tell him to get this stuff approved.”
Thune responded angrily to Leavitt’s comments Thursday. "Well, maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes, right?” he told reporters about the election bill. “It’s 50 around here, and so instead of, you know, pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats, and if there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone.”
Thune also told reporters that the Senate doesn’t have the votes to advance the House-passed budget framework.
“As I’ve said before you got to get to 50, and I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution,” Thune said according to The Hill. “We’ll see. We’ll have those conversations with the conference. The priority is funding the government. To me that’s the thing we got to keep our eyes on.”
Thune had said earlier this week that he will hold the House budget resolution and could use the partisan reconciliation process it sets up to fund the government if Democrats don’t compromise on a stopgap funding extension that will be needed at the end of September. Thune said he plans on bringing a Senate stopgap to a vote before senators leave for their August recess.
What it all means: Thune and Senate Republicans are under immense pressure from Trump and the MAGA base, but the math hasn’t changed. The Senate still doesn’t have the votes to pass the SAVE America Act. The Senate also might not take up the reconciliation bill before Election Day given that work on the stopgap spending bill could still take weeks. And the politics of that reconciliation bill, which includes $60 billion more for the Pentagon and the war in Iran, are complicated — and could get even more complicated if several senators who want to offset at least part of the budget bill’s costs push to modify the House framework.
The bottom line: Getting Trump’s election changes and the House-passed $95 billion budget plan through the Senate before the midterms will be difficult, if not impossible.