Republican senators appear to have a difference in political opinion with President Donald Trump, many of them holding polar opposite positions on how best to win the 2026 midterms. Reports indicate that, during a fiery luncheon with GOP senators yesterday, June 24, a furious Trump took them to task over a Tuesday war powers vote, which would have set the stage for limiting his negotiations with Iran. The GOP caucus then went back to Congress and forced a vote, essentially nullifying the previous measure. But the contentious dining experience was only one part of a battle-filled day between the president and the upper-chamber leadership.
Senate Republicans seem determined to enact a pre-2016 playbook for the midterms in which the term “go big or go home” was never even a footnote. Meanwhile, Trump seems ready to swing for the fences, and if bipartisan bills get killed or delayed in the process, then so be it.
Holding Bills to Ransom
The president was scheduled to do a grand signing of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on Wednesday afternoon. The bill, among other things, would limit regulations to expand the housing supply and bar large corporate investors from buying up single-family homes. But Trump sees this as leverage for his top priority legislation, the SAVE America Act. He wrote on Truth Social:
"Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
While there are not currently 60 votes to pass this act, which would demand voters show ID when registering to vote and when casting a ballot – much like is done in most developed nations – there are ways to pass it with enough political will.
Prior to the lunch and Trump's refusal to sign, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said:
“I am very direct with the president. I shoot straight with him and vice versa. We at times have differences of opinion, but I think the important thing is the issues that really matter to the future of this country and to the American people, we have been united on.”
And what might the issues be that most matter to the American people? Well, crossing the party divide entirely is voter ID, a key precept of the SAVE America Act. It’s one of the few genuine 80/20 issues that unites the political spectrum. And yet this appears to be at the heart of the Republican rift. Thune says the party just does not have the votes.
Technically, he is correct, without nuking the filibuster that is. This provides a conundrum for the majority leader that just about everyone else has already solved. Democrat leadership has openly stated that they will do away with the filibuster when they regain power – and would have already done so were it not for former Sens. Manchin and Sinema during the Biden presidency. This leaves Mr. Thune in a position to preserve a congressional tradition that will be jettisoned as soon as he loses the majority.
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Is Once Again Saying Democrats Want To Break Senate Rules To Eliminate The Filibuster.” That’s the headline on the Republican Leadership webpage published August 2024 – under which senator’s name? John Thune.
Naturally, President Trump sees this as a losing position. And from this, it seems, other disagreements have spiraled.
Nominations, and War Powers, Oh My
This week, we saw the now-overturned vote of 50 to 48 to stop the president from resuming war efforts against Iran, a gut punch to Trump, who has stated that if negotiations for peace fail, he will resume military action. Had the measure stood, it would have made his threats toothless, giving Tehran the permanent upper hand. While the measure couldn't have been vetoed, history shows that it could quite easily have been ignored. But it would have made any negotiations effectively worthless.
Added to this was the GOP pushback against the “lawfare fund” of $1.8 billion over which the Democrats and Republicans united in calling for Trump to scupper the whole thing. Trump responded by encouraging (or ordering?) his nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, not to appear at his confirmation hearing – which led to the Senate not reauthorizing Section 702 of FISA.
Indeed, with the upper chamber seemingly intent on frustrating Trump’s efforts, the president apparently feels he can return the favor in kind. Which brings us to just how much this internecine grudge match will impact the November midterms.
Last Stand at the Senate
“The main question I would like to ask the president is: Do you want to win the midterms?” recently dethroned Texas Senator John Cornyn pondered with reporters. “A bunch of infighting among Republicans isn’t conducive to winning. And if we do want to win, I think we’re going to have to change our behavior.” Cornyn lost his primary in a May 26 run-off to state Attorney General Ken Paxton, which perhaps suggests that changing behavior is not what Republican voters in the Lone Star State actually want.
But what of the rest of the country?
Trump’s ambition is laser-focused on convincing John Thune to pass the SAVE Act and introduce voter ID, and he appears to believe that such a transformative piece of legislation will be enough to secure a GOP victory in the midterms. For Senator Thune, presenting as a stable, united political force – even without sweeping legislation – is the way to earn voter trust and ballots.
The reality is that, barring very few exceptions, the ruling party always loses something during midterms. With Trump’s popularity at a low ebb (40.4%), and the GOP’s even lower (30.9%), keeping calm and maintaining the status quo most likely signals the end of the Washington, DC, trifecta – if not in the well-insulated Senate, then at least in the House.
If movies from the ’80s and ’90s taught us one thing, it is that one grand gesture can change everything, and that seems to be what Donald Trump is aiming to deliver. Whether the Senate gets in his way is a question yesterday’s luncheon failed to answer.
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