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\n

John Thune is stuck in between President Donald Trump\u2019s demands and the realities of Senate math.<\/p>\n

Thune has eight days to appease the president who wants to see the framework for a third GOP bill advance before senators break for summer recess.<\/p>\n

But the Senate majority leader in an interview with Jordain<\/a> says he doesn\u2019t have the 50 votes needed to adopt the budget plan right now. And he\u2019s uncertain the president would be happy with the substantially watered-down form of the election security bill \u2014 the SAVE America Act \u2014 that Trump sees as the centerpiece of the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the question at the end is, is that going to be satisfactory to him?\u201d Thune said. \u201cAnd so we\u2019re still trying to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the same time, Trump was in the Oval Office insisting Thune \u201chas the votes\u201d to kill the Senate\u2019s longstanding filibuster and pass the elections bill. He went on to sow doubt on whether he believed Thune was fit to lead Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will find out, and I will let you know,\u201d Trump told reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The White House, meanwhile, sent a number of Trump officials to lobby for Reconciliation 3.0 Wednesday, but they struggled to squash GOP senators\u2019 skepticism about the<\/u><\/a> administration\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

Republicans laid out for officials the political complications of taking up the House-passed $95 billion budget resolution in their chamber. Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson, for example, said including the SAVE America provisions in the Senate \u2014 unlike in the House \u2014 could involve more committees and open up the range of issues Democrats would be able to force politically troublesome votes on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all hate vote-a-rama,\u201d Johnson added. \u201cSome people are more sensitive to the kind of votes they have to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some senate want more military spending than the $60 billion House Republicans laid out in their own framework.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have challenges that need to be met,\u201d Sen. Jerry Moran said after a closed-door Senate GOP meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. \u201cThe process is going to be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bottom line: taking up the party-line bill is a political minefield for GOP senators less than 100 days from the midterms, and Thune said the Republican-on-Republican attacks aren\u2019t helping.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s try and win some seats in both the House and the Senate, and let\u2019s use this issue to our advantage instead of using it to beat each other up,\u201d Thune said.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 BLANCHE VOTE POSTPONED: <\/b>Senate Judiciary delayed plans to advance<\/u><\/a> Todd Blanche\u2019s nomination as attorney general today after key GOP holdouts failed to reach an agreement with the administration on preconditions for their support. Sen. John Cornyn was explicit on the legal language he needed from Blanche to revise a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS by Wednesday afternoon to secure his vote. Sen. Thom Tillis, another member of the panel with concerns about the settlement, said he would follow Cornyn\u2019s lead. <\/p>\n

\u2014 SENATE STOPGAP TAKES SHAPE: <\/b>Senate leaders are leaning toward a Dec. 11 shutdown deadline for the stopgap government funding patch they want to pass next week, according to two people familiar with the discussions. That\u2019s one week later than the Dec. 4 date House Republicans put in the bare-bones version they passed last week. Top senators are still working to finalize a bipartisan agreement on their plan to keep federal agencies funded beyond the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Katherine Tully-McManus, Chris Marquette and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Thune is stuck in between President Donald Trump\u2019s demands and the realities of Senate math. Thune has eight days to appease the president who wants to see the framework for a third GOP bill advance before senators break for summer recess. But the Senate majority leader in an interview with Jordain says he doesn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}