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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is facing deepening pressure from all sides — especially President Trump — as he prepares to navigate a packed to-do list headlined by a government funding bill and third reconciliation bill. The Senate is closing in on its last two weeks before an extended recess, which could set the tone for the high-stakes midterm autumn. Thune is contending with moderates eyeing the midterms, hard-liners demanding concessions, a group of disgruntled outgoing Republicans willing to stymie Trump at multiple turns — and Trump himself, who has not been shy about making his displeasure with the majority leader known. That, potential attendance issues and a ticking clock will make it especially tricky to move the GOP’s top priorities before the Senate breaks on Aug. 7.
And Thune is already facing friction with the White House over how to proceed and what should be the Senate’s top priority.
The first priority, according to Thune, is funding the government to avert a shutdown in October. Trump, however, wants the Senate to prioritize a House-passed $95 billion reconciliation framework, which includes $73 billion in funding for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, $12 billion for farmers and $10 billion for election-related reforms. Those election reforms, in the form of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, have been Trump’s top legislative priority, but the act has been repeatedly blocked in the Senate.
That conflict will likely set the tenor for the coming weeks.
Thune said last week that the budget resolution, which would serve as the blueprint for a third reconciliation bill, does not have the 50 votes needed to advance in the Senate.
“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 when asked about whether the Senate would move the House-passed framework for reconciliation.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring at the end of the term and has been increasingly vocal on a number of issues, earlier this month vowed to stymie any bill with the SAVE America Act attached.
“If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math,” Tillis said, nearly shouting, on the Senate floor.
Instead, Thune wants to preserve the reconciliation framework in case it’s needed in order to pass government funding later this fall.
The South Dakota Republican said he’s working with Democrats to craft a bipartisan stopgap bill to keep the government funded through early December. If that fails, he’s open to using the party-line reconciliation measure to avoid a shutdown instead.
“Let’s try the bipartisan route and see what happens,” Thune said.
Thune’s idea of success is simply staving off a funding fight on the eve of the midterms, and he enjoys the backing of key voices in his conference. But Trump’s is passing the voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act, or making hay out of the Senate’s failure to do so. And he’s been upping the pressure.
The president told a campaign rally in Georgia last week that “the Senate is a place you send things when you want them to die.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday told reporters that Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune, prompting a sharp response from the majority leader.
And Trump posted on social media Friday, congratulating the House on adopting the budget resolution to set up reconciliation, with the SAVE America Act included, and urged the Senate to do the same. “This will be one of the most consequential Bills in America’s History,” Trump wrote. “I am asking that the Senate adopt a Budget Resolution, which can pass with a simple Majority, before leaving for the August recess. We are ready to work side-by-side with the Senate to get this done for the American People!”
While the funding plan gets hammered out, several Trump nominees are up for high-stakes votes.
Dr. Erica Schwartz, who is nominated to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will face a committee vote this week, from which she is expected to advance after securing the key swing vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Sean Kaufman, nominee for an agency focused on public health preparedness, saw his committee vote pulled last week over a lack of support due to his past skepticism on the safety of vaccines, and it remains unclear if the committee will take a vote on him before recess.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, meanwhile, needs every Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote for him, which could occur this week. But outgoing Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Tillis have not committed to a position yet. Both have been in frequent back-and-forths with the Department of Justice to get assurances that a proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, which Cornyn and Tillis strongly oppose, is permanently dead.
One Republican “no” vote could stall Blanche’s nomination.
Even if Tillis and Cornyn end up backing Blanche, all Democrats are likely to reject him on the floor. It’s possible he could lose other Republican votes, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has had several rounds of meetings with Blanche but has not said how she will vote.
A more partisan fight will play out for director of national intelligence pick Jay Clayton, who already advanced out of the Select Committee on Intelligence and is set for a floor vote this week. All Republicans supported his nomination in committee, but Clayton, a federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, faced sharp questioning from Democrats after refusing to declare whether former President Biden won the 2020 election.
This is especially pertinent for Democrats, who are worried that Trump will use the federal law enforcement and intelligence apparatus to interfere against them in the midterm elections. Clayton doesn’t need Democratic votes if he has all Republicans in support.
And those aren’t the only issues that have gotten pushed late into the summer.
A major priority for Thune once Clayton is in the job will be getting a deal to restart a legal authority that allows federal intelligence agents to spy on foreign threats abroad, which lapsed in June.
Any measure to reauthorize that law will need support from Democrats, who had withheld their backing for reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as long as Trump’s acting director was at the helm.
Senators on both sides of the aisle are also pushing to pass a widely supported bill to impose greater sanctions on Russia and its allies. Trump wants to add sanctions on Iran to that legislation, and Thune said that’s likely to face little resistance from his chamber.
“I think everybody’s fine with it because we do it anyway, Iran sanctions is something we’ve had in place the last 30 years,” Thune told reporters Thursday. “I’ve been having conversations with Democrats and folks on our side, and … I think we’re homing in on it.”
Thune added that he’s hoping to get an agreement from Democrats to shorten the amount of debate time the bill would require in order to get it across the finish line sooner, likely this week.
With all this to do, it’s unlikely that two bipartisan bills, the Protect College Sports Act, which would set up new rules for how college sports are governed, and the Clarity Act, which would establish a market structure for cryptocurrency, will see floor action before August.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to get them done,” Thune said this week of the two policy packages. “I would like to at least get Clarity started. We’ll see where the votes are.”
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