Congress

Trump escalates his war on Senate Republicans — and senators are striking back

Published

1 month ago

June 17, 2026

President Donald Trump is making life almost impossible for Senate Republicans — and these days fewer of them are willing to just let it slide.

Some lawmakers that were once happy to brush off impulsive and disruptive behavior by saying they hadn’t seen the president’s social media posts or that it was just “Trump being Trump” are increasingly willing to speak out against what they view as bad decisions that undermine their ability to deliver legislative wins as the midterms approach.

The latest irritation was the early-morning Truth Social post Wednesday that upended GOP hopes of quickly confirming a new director of national intelligence and reviving a surveillance bill that Trump already derailed earlier this month.

The chaos that followed Trump’s sudden U-turn on Jay Clayton’s nomination, just hours before a scheduled confirmation hearing, further loosened tongues in the Capitol hallways — even from lawmakers who tend to be reliable allies.

“The president’s timing and communication needs improvement,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. “I think it’s unfortunate. It throws a kicker into the system when we get going and then we have to readjust.”

Asked about frustration within the conference about the recent lack of coordination, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) added, “Well, duh.”

Kennedy added, “No, I don’t,” when asked if Trump takes senators into consideration: “He wants what he wants, and until he gets it, he just keeps pushing.”

The public frustrations are bubbling up at a crucial moment for Trump and Republicans more broadly. The president sent his wee-hours missive from France, where he was meeting with global leaders at the annual G7 conference and seeking to sell an Iran peace deal that many in his party despise.

Trump has faced recent pushback on several fronts in the Senate, with Republicans foiling plans to fund part of his White House ballroom project in a recent immigration funding deal and forcing the Justice Department to abandon plans for a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could compensate Trump allies.

The president’s frequent demands that the Senate abandon its longstanding filibuster rule to pass more legislation along party lines, including a controversial elections overhaul, have also gone unheeded — adding to Trump’s obvious frustration.

He has now responded on several occasions by simply infuriating GOP senators who believe they are on the precipice of delivering a legislative win — only for Trump to suddenly pull the rug out from under them.

His announcement of the DOJ payout fund, for instance, delayed and nearly killed a critical immigration funding bill. And his decision to tap Bill Pulte, a close political ally who heads a housing agency, as acting director of national intelligence blew up a brewing three-year deal on reauthorizing a key piece of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced his retirement last year after breaking with Trump on policy legislation, said the dynamic is “undermining our ability to produce the very results he wants.”

“Look, we are not the manufacturing department of the Article II branch — we are the board of directors for the Article II branch,” he said. “You start treating us like that, coordinating with us like that, we won’t have these embarrassing setbacks.”

Trump’s decision to call off Clayton’s appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee came as Republicans believed he was on track to be confirmed as soon as Thursday. That, they believed, would allow for an extension of the spy law — something administration officials had previously argued is crucial to protect Americans amid the World Cup and ongoing America 250 celebrations.

Instead, Clayton and the FISA reauthorization have become the latest tension point between Trump and the Senate, with the president again hammering Republicans for not passing the partisan elections bill known as the SAVE America Act, while also needling them about refusing to blow up the filibuster and the internal rules granting home-state senators deference on some presidential nominees.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has expressed his own frustrations in a more understated way than others in the GOP ranks.

Normally chatty with reporters, Thune was unusually tight-lipped Wednesday, saying that Senate Republicans would have to figure out the path forward on Clayton and the surveillance law “one day at a time” and that his relationship with Trump was “fine” amid the public turmoil.

“The president has his own mind, makes his own decisions, so do we,” Thune said.

He later explained in an interview that the White House and Senate Republicans do a “fair amount of coordination.” “But sometimes you get surprised,” he added. “It’s a business model the White House employs, and we’ve had to figure out how to be adaptable.”

The White House said in a statement that Trump has worked closely with Senate Republicans on the party’s agenda over the past year, including last year’s $4.5 trillion tax cut and the immigration enforcement bill passed earlier this year.

“We look forward to continuing these close relationships and fulfilling President Trump’s priorities that Americans elected him to enact,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in the statement.

Thune and Trump developed a good working relationship at the outset of the president’s second term, a turnaround from tensions that emerged in the period after Trump’s 2020 election loss that included him calling for a primary challenge to Thune in 2022. Several Senate Republicans praised Thune Wednesday for trying to keep the conference focused and said they didn’t believe Trump’s salvos were personal.

“Hating Thune would be like hating golden retrievers. You can’t dislike Thune. I don’t think the president dislikes him,” Kennedy said, while adding that Trump is fixated on the elections bill: “I just think he wants what he wants, and he continues to push. I just don’t think in this instance he’s likely to get it.”

Several other members identified the SAVE America Act as a persistent friction point despite GOP senators showing over and over again that the bill doesn’t have the votes to pass in the Senate. They are eager for Trump, and some of their own colleagues, to turn their focus from infighting to hammering Democrats heading into November.

Senate Republicans, according to two people granted anonymity to describe a private meeting, directly criticized Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) during a closed-door lunch Wednesday over setting unrealistic expectations about passing the bill.

Without naming Lee, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took a jab afterward at those “making unrealistic promises and then when they’re not obtained, criticizing one another.”

Cornyn, who lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term this month after Trump endorsed his opponent, also acknowledged the president was the source of “some frustration” inside the Senate GOP around “basically being able to function.”

Congress

Scalise will kick off August campaign sprint in marquee Nebraska House race

Published

1 hour ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.

Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.

Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.

After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

5 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

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

Congress

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

Published

6 hours 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.