Congress

How John Thune is trying to manage Trump’s summer squeeze

Published

1 day ago

July 30, 2026

John Thune is eager to let GOP senators out of the Capitol and onto the campaign trail as Republicans fight to hold the Senate majority in November. First, he has to get through the next eight days.

The majority leader is hoping to fund the government, confirm dozens of President Donald Trump’s nominees and hand him new powers to punish Russia’s trading partners before letting his members leave for a five-week recess. But Trump has turned Thune’s exit strategy into a cascading political test.

The vise-like pressure campaign was playing out as Thune sat down with Blue Light News in his Capitol office Wednesday. At about the same moment, Trump was in the Oval Office insisting Thune “has the votes” to kill the Senate’s long-standing filibuster rule and pass a GOP elections bill. He went on to sow doubt as to whether he felt Thune was fit to lead the chamber’s Republicans.

“We will find out, and I will let you know,” Trump told reporters.

Unaware of Trump’s latest attacks, Thune in the interview nonetheless repeated that, no, he does not have anywhere near the votes to kill the filibuster or pass the SAVE America Act — the partisan elections bill Trump is pushing for. And he spoke frankly about the political risk Trump and other Republicans who are training their fire inward are assuming.

“I feel like we’re as well positioned as we can be,” Thune said of the midterm landscape, but “what we’ve got to do is just make the overarching narrative one that has us drawing contrast with our Democrat opponents rather than us shooting each other.” He held out hope that Trump would do just that as Election Day approaches.

Trump visited the Senate in June — at the invitation of Florida Sen. Rick Scott, not Thune.

The frustration with Trump’s intraparty attacks is widely shared among Thune’s colleagues but has been most frequently voiced by GOP members who are retiring or are otherwise insulated from Trump’s staggering political influence, like Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Tillis downplayed Trump’s latest attacks Wednesday, chalking it up to the “typical tug and pull” among Republicans rather than a reflection of the president’s specific views on Thune.

Thune has up to this point acted more as a lightning rod for his conference, which is a traditional role for congressional leaders. But typically they attract bolts from the other party, not their own president.

In the interview Wednesday, Thune said he and Trump “get along” even as he acknowledged that he’s bearing the brunt of the president’s frustrations with the Senate’s inability to bend reality to his whims.

“He gets obviously frustrated with me because he sees me as the person that’s the impediment to some of the things he wants to get done. But as I continually point out … I don’t make this stuff up,” he said. “Math is math, arithmetic is arithmetic. … And part of it, too, is the active role he played in some of these primaries.”

“He thinks I can wave the magic wand,” he added. “I wish it were that easy.”

What has made things more challenging in recent weeks has been the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump confidant who was able to have frank conversations with the president about the realities of the Senate.

“He was a great intermediary, whisperer, whatever you want to call it,” Thune said. “But yeah, it’s a real loss. I do think that he had the kind of relationship where he could speak bluntly, candidly, directly, and the president would accept it.”

He added there are conversations now happening about “how to better have a better line of communication” between Senate Republicans and Trump’s orbit. Just after sitting down with Blue Light News, he met with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

“We’ve got some people that can step into that role,” Thune said.

Thune paid tribute Tuesday to late colleague Lindsey Graham.

If the SAVE America Act was the only Trump-obsession Thune had to manage, it would be one thing, but the debate over the bill — which Thune supports — is also tied to Republicans’ attempt to enact a new party-line spending bill, which could include some election-related grant funding.

House Republicans managed to muscle through a $95 billion budget blueprint, but the path in the Senate is murky at best. Thune is dealing with deficit hawks who want at least part of the spending offset with cuts, defense hawks who want more Pentagon funding, and members who aren’t convinced there should be any bill at all.

But the White House is keeping the pressure on: Trump himself issued a public call for action on Truth Social Wednesday morning, and budget director Russ Vought pushed senators to move quickly in a private lunch just hours later.

Speaking in the interview shortly after the lunch, Thune said the budget blueprint Trump and his deputies are hoping to pass doesn’t currently have the votes to be approved. But he left the door open to a potential breakthrough before the end of next week while also acknowledging possible Plan Bs that could release at least some of the mounting pressure — possibly by putting pieces of the elections bill up for a vote.

“The question is, do we … trigger a vote on photo ID, put it on the floor, have a debate about it?” he said. “Those things are all kind of [things] we’re giving consideration to. But at the end of the day, does it change the outcome? I can’t see it.”

Thune also effectively ruled out holding a test vote on killing the filibuster. He warned that forcing what would essentially be symbolic votes would risk dividing Republicans while serving no practical end.

“You end up … basically for the 60 or 90 days heading into an election, fighting among Republicans, which to me seems really counterproductive, going into an election that’s pretty high-stakes,” Thune said.

Instead, Thune wants to make progress on other fronts. In addition to the sanctions bill, Thune wants to pass legislation funding the government past November — something virtually unheard of in July but something that he says is “trending in the right direction” nevertheless.

He’s also got nominees to confirm, and he’s looking to at least take an initial step on a cryptocurrency bill or college sports legislation. It’s an ambitious schedule for a month in the Senate, much less a week — especially when the president has his own priorities.

But Thune has consistently paid heed to his own constituency — the Republican senators who elected him to stay focused, put legislative wins on the board, and keep the GOP in the majority.

Thune has said he is planning to run for leader again in November, and most Senate Republicans believe he’s secure in his job.

Asked about the Oval Office comments later Wednesday evening, Thune initially danced around Trump’s equivocal assessment of whether he was “the man for the job” of leading the Senate GOP.

“That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues,” he said.

But in subsequent comments, Thune joked that if Trump “could find somebody else to do this job, it might be a big relief.”

“It is what it is,” he added. “You just roll with it.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

1 hour ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.

Congress

Former MLB star Mark Teixeira to hit campaign trail with GOP leaders

Published

4 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders are planning to bring former MLB star Mark Teixeira, one of their top candidate recruits this cycle, out on the trail in battleground districts over the summer recess sprint.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise will host a fundraiser with Teixeira in New York City on Aug. 20 with Speaker Mike Johnson as a special guest, according to three people with direct knowledge of the event, granted anonymity to discuss plans that have not yet been made public.

It’s part of a New York swing where Teixeira and Johnson will also hit nearby stops in GOP Rep. Mike Lawler’s 17th Congressional District and for Mike LiPetri, who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Teixeira is running to replace GOP Rep. Chip Roy in Texas’ 21st Congressional District. He won a World Series title with the Yankees in 2009 and also played for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels before retiring from professional baseball in 2016 after 14 seasons.

Because Teixeira has little chance of losing in the deep-red seat, Republican leaders are hoping to harness his star power to boost their candidates in the most competitive races. They’re planning for Teixeira to help campaign in a wider swath of battleground districts in August and through November, including likely stops in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

Congress

Faced with Blanche dilemma, Trump chooses revenge

Published

4 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump has a choice: allow changes to a controversial court settlement and secure the confirmation of his former personal lawyer as attorney general, or thumb his nose at a pair of his few remaining Republican critics in Congress.

True to form, he is giving no ground — so far.

Trump’s decision Thursday to signal he would rather pull the nomination of Todd Blanche, his pick to lead the Justice Department, rather than give in to the demands of Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis demonstrated that the president’s desire to thwart his enemies does not end with the demise of their political careers.

Both Republican senators will leave Congress at the end of the year after running afoul of Trump, and both have found a degree of independence since becoming untethered from needing to keep in his good graces.

But their efforts to exert leverage and seek to curtail a controversial settlement agreement reached in May between Trump and the IRS only prompted the president to double down. He announced in a Truth Social post that Blanche would remain as acting attorney general “in any event” and that he would potentially withdraw and resubmit the nomination “after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office” in January.

Tillis, who announced he would not seek reelection last year after clashing with Trump over Medicaid cuts in his home state of North Carolina, betrayed little surprise when asked about Trump’s reticence to bargain over the IRS settlement.

“Look up the definition of recalcitrant,” he said.

Cornyn, who lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term representing Texas in May after Trump endorsed a scandal-prone opponent, brushed off the accusation that he was simply seeking revenge by blocking Blanche.

He called Trump’s claim “a convenient excuse, but it’s certainly not true.” And he warned the president that trying to wait him out would be a “gamble.”

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” he said.

The subtext of Cornyn’s remark was that Republicans might have a smaller majority if they have one at all — raising the question that if Trump can’t strike a deal with members of his own party to advance his prized nominee, what will governing with Democrats possibly look like?

One of Trump’s frequent Democratic sparring partners from his first term in office — Sen. Adam Schiff of California — said the pressure from Cornyn and Tillis is only a hint of what is to come and that the president should get used to “a restoration of checks and balances.”

“I would hope what it will mean both for the remainder of this Congress and the next is that Congress will once again assume the role of being a counterbalance to the power of the executive,” said Schiff, who led Democrats’ first Trump impeachment attempt. “We largely reneged on that.”

The battle of Blanche has been especially pitched given Trump’s personal interests. Not only did Blanche represent Trump in multiple cases brought in the years before the president’s reelection, Cornyn and Tillis were seeking to curtail a deal that personally benefited him.

Both men sought to ensure a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” set out in the agreement text could not be revived and to restrict the terms of an audit immunity agreement applying to Trump, his family and business.

It’s possible a deal could still be reached. Cornyn and Tillis met with Blanche Thursday afternoon after Trump issued his ultimatum. One person granted anonymity to describe the private meeting said the two sides were “working collaboratively now” and that it was good “they were finally all face to face.”

Ahead of the meeting, both senators insinuated that the White House — not Blanche — was the obstacle to revising the settlement and moving forward with the confirmation. Cornyn explicitly blamed Trump, while Tillis said the presidents’ advisers could be to blame.

“They’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be,” Cornyn said Wednesday. “We’ve tried to make it easy for them, and they simply refuse to take our help.”

Both said they believed there was a desire in Trump’s orbit to resurrect the payout fund at some point to direct federal settlements to the president’s political allies.

GOP colleagues also chalked up Thursday’s drama to the White House not wanting to give in — whether to protect the original settlement agreement or to deny Trump’s critics a victory.“Clearly, the White House does not want to do what Senator Cornyn and Senator Tillis were asking,” said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she shared Cornyn and Tillis’ qualms about the settlement and asked Blanche in her own private meeting to put his oral commitments in writing.

“I have expressed the same concerns, and I am waiting for the same answers,” said Murkowski, an occasional Trump critic who is up for reelection in 2028.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.