Congress

‘You just roll with it’: Filibuster fight puts a MAGA target on Thune

Published

6 months ago

March 11, 2026

Conservatives are putting John Thune in a political pressure cooker as they try to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass a controversial elections bill. The majority leader is making it clear he’s willing to take the heat.

Thune is at the center of a relentless pile-on from prominent figures in the GOP’s MAGA wing who want Senate Republicans to force a “talking filibuster” to smoke out and ultimately defeat Democratic opposition to the bill known as the SAVE America Act — a tactic Thune believes doesn’t have enough support from his members.

President Donald Trump declared the bill his “No. 1 priority” going into the midterms Monday, and House Republicans are vowing to gum up their own chamber in a bid to squeeze the Senate GOP. An intense online campaign reached a crescendo this week with tech mogul Elon Musk joining online calls to remove Thune as leader.

Thune, confident of his support from fellow Republican senators, brushed off the criticism in an interview Tuesday.

“It just kind of comes with the territory,” he said. “You just roll with it, you know. It’s the times in which we live.”

Thune spoke just hours after announcing plans to call up the bill next week in a bid to bring an unusually acrimonious stretch for his conference to an end. It will not include a talking filibuster gambit that would skirt the usual 60-vote threshold by instead forcing Democrats to hold the floor if they want to block the bill.

The pressure has frustrated GOP senators who believe the increasingly public infighting has transformed an issue that polls well for them — preventing noncitizens from voting in federal elections — into a messy internal brawl.

Fed up with a crowd of conservative social media influencers flooding their online accounts with messages about a talking filibuster — many of them egged on by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — a few are growing more blunt about those frustrations.

Lee is leading the internal push to deploy the talking filibuster.

“Spare me the insights,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring. “They’re worse than Democrats because they’re so-called Republicans that are trying to undermine Republicans.”

Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, described the online rhetoric as “bullshit.” A third senator, granted anonymity for similar reasons, summed up the feeling within the conference: “A lot of us are done.”

Four Republicans granted anonymity described Thune as privately exasperated by the social media rhetoric, believing that it ignores the mathematical reality in the Senate that the talking filibuster as proposed can’t deliver what its proponents want — passage of the SAVE America Act — and could tie up the chamber for months in the meantime.

While Thune has remained publicly even-keeled, he has spoken in increasingly sharp terms about the matter — believing that his job as majority leader is to be honest about the legislative realities at play, even if they frustrate some in the party. No Republican senator, including Lee, has called for Thune’s removal as leader.

“Those votes aren’t there for a talking filibuster, “ he told reporters Tuesday. “I’m the person who has to deliver sometimes the not-so-good news that the math doesn’t add up.”

The headaches for Senate Republicans go beyond the wave of online criticism. Trump, who has the loudest megaphone in the party, is not only backing the talking filibuster effort but appears to be holding off on a crucial endorsement of Texas Sen. John Cornyn ahead of a costly primary runoff in a bid to force action on it.

Thune said senators have “conveyed” to Trump there isn’t support inside the GOP ranks to successfully deploy a talking filibuster — something the president appeared to acknowledge during a news conference Monday.

Doing so would require the majority party to maintain attendance and control of the floor on a constant basis for weeks on end. Not only would the underlying bill be subject to extended debate, but Democrats could offer endless amendments and procedural motions that Republicans would have to constantly vote down. No bill in modern Senate history has been passed in that manner.

Thune said at a news conference Tuesday that

Lee and his allies argue that the focused public attention on the issue of noncitizen voting will ultimately cause Democrats to fold after a lengthy fight. Some have compared it to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which passed after a two-month filibuster — though only after senators voted 71-29 to close debate.

The party’s internal fight comes to a head next week when Thune is expected to bring the SAVE America Act to the floor subject to the 60-vote legislative filibuster. The weeks of infighting and skepticism from a few GOP senators about the substance of the bill has Republicans questioning if they even have the 50 votes needed to launch debate, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Lee and other hard-right members of the House and Senate are showing no signs of backing down, seemingly ready to drive the intraparty fight down to the wire.

“Americans want the SAVE America Act. The Senate should do everything it can in an effort to pass it.,” Lee said in one of several tweets about the bill Tuesday. “While passage isn’t guaranteed, we can be certain that failure will be the outcome if we don’t try.”

Some GOP senators have grown increasingly frustrated with Lee as he’s pushed for a talking filibuster, even though the idea has never had a clear path toward getting enough support within the conference.

One Republican senator granted anonymity said in a recent interview that colleagues feel like Lee is fundraising off the issue. A second on Tuesday said Lee had negatively impacted his own relationships within the conference, though they questioned whether the Utah Republican cared.

Lee has supporters within the Senate, not to mention the backing of the president. Thune also touched a nerve with Lee and conservative activists this week when he publicly attributed some of the online pressure to a “paid influencer ecosystem.”

In a video posted to X Monday, Lee didn’t directly mention Thune but urged his supporters to redouble their efforts and “make clear this is not the product of paid influencers.”

The retiring Tillis is voicing concerns shared privately by other Senate Republicans.

Asked about the online backlash, Thune clarified his comments Tuesday. He drew a distinction between “passion across the country … at the grassroots level” and “others in the social media world.”

Compounding the internal skepticism about the talking filibuster strategy is that a number of GOP senators, including Thune, oppose changing Senate rules to eliminate or weaken the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Lee and his allies argue that the talking filibuster would avoid the need for a rules change. But a number of GOP senators believe it would still in practice weaken the filibuster and pave the way for Democrats to pass far-reaching legislation of their own when they regain power.

Others have raised concerns that a talking filibuster, without rules changes that enforce limits on the debate, could stifle the majority party’s agenda at a crucial moment ahead of the midterms. It could also give Democrats the chance to try to hijack the elections bill by seeking to amend it with their own priorities — at the very least forcing GOP incumbents to take politically damaging votes.

Talking filibuster advocates “have no earthly idea how unlikely it is we’ll be successful at the end of the day,” Tillis said. “And yet they want to pressure me into exposing some of our candidates to votes that make no sense, that are not going to succeed.”

Congress

Democrats keep pressure on Hakeem Jeffries to punish rogue members

Published

6 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats aren’t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won’t either.

“Obviously, there’s got to be” punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.

“Otherwise, then,” he said, “it’s open season.”

Democrats are watching closely how — and if — Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a “breach of trust” warranting a “serious response” but have yet to inflict any public consequences.

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line — especially if they have a slim majority next term.

“We have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.”

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: “When I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.”

“I don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,” he added. “We have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.”

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he’s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)

“I suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “And, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.”

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that “team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members “sooner rather than later.” The panel continues to deliberate on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.

Jeffries said that week that he’d had a “productive” and “forward-looking” conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday’s floor drama.

“I’ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,” he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.

Congress

House passes Russia sanctions bill, handing Trump more leverage against Moscow

Published

8 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House passed the sweeping Russia sanctions bill long championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday, sending the legislation to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature after more than a year of congressional maneuvering.

The 262 to 159 vote ends a nearly two-year lull in Ukraine assistance from Congress, which had not passed any major Ukraine efforts since a 2024 emergency aid package. The bill faced a number of obstacles on the path to the Resolute Desk, including significant opposition from some House Democrats who argued that the bill would give the White House too much tariff power.

After weathering a number of storms to make it out of Capitol Hill, the legislation is all but guaranteed to get Trump’s signature.

The long-anticipated legislation issues mandatory sanctions on Russia’s leadership and energy sector — as well as new sanctions on collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and its so-called shadow fleet. Advocates of the bill, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have argued it would give the White House necessary tools to squeeze Russia economically, curbing the flow of funds to Moscow’s war machine.

But, to many Democrats’ dismay, the legislation also includes a 100% tariff on top buyers of Russian energy. Opponents of the bill have cautioned that the tariff provision would hand another cudgel for Trump to use against not only U.S. foes but also global allies — an action the White House has repeatedly taken since Trump returned to office.

“We cannot grant more tariff power that we know he will abuse,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in comments on the House floor Wednesday.

Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the tariffs would worsen the economic pain already felt by everyday Americans and that without a security assistance package or more air defense, they would not do enough to concretely help Ukraine.

In comments on the House floor earlier Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why he planned to withhold support for the measure.

“The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia,” Jeffries said. “In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe, that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions relief contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day.”

That disagreement has caused a growing rift among Democrats in recent days. Fifty-eight House Democrats broke with Jeffries to vote yes on the measure.

In a letter addressed to House Democrats, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) urged her colleagues to pass the legislation, warning that failing to do so would send a dangerous message to both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other international foes.

“Congress’s failure to impose additional costs would send a dangerous signal,” Shaheen wrote. “The Kremlin is watching. Kyiv is watching. Our NATO allies are watching. So are Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.”

Congress

Rand Paul kills Kennedy’s AI ‘kill switch’ bill

Published

9 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul blocked an attempt by fellow Republican Sen. John Kennedy to quickly pass legislation that would require companies to build a “kill switch” into their artificial intelligence model.

Kennedy, of Louisiana, went to the Senate floor Wednesday to try to pass his bill without holding a formal vote — a step that can be prevented by any one of his 99 colleagues. He argued that the measure was effectively a short-term step, with Congress unlikely to pass more sweeping AI legislation in the immediate future even amid fears that technological advancements could spiral out of human control.

“We are not going to get up off our ice-cold lazy butts and address this anytime soon,” Kennedy said about Congress’ inability to pass a more comprehensive bill. “But still we’ve got this risk out there that we know is real of one of these models becoming the Terminator.”

Paul, however, blocked Kennedy’s request to pass the bill through a unanimous consent agreement, saying from the Senate floor, “I think we should have as many facts as possible before we dictate rules for the whole economy.”

“I don’t oppose the spirit of this bill but I do ask that we make sure that we have all the information,” the Kentucky lawmaker added.

Paul tried to amend Kennedy’s bill to establish a group that could make recommendations on AI guardrail policies to the Senate Commerce Committee. Kennedy rejected that suggestion.

“My mama didn’t raise a fool,” he said, adding, “a committee is a way to kill this.”

Kennedy’s push for a vote comes after he told reporters Monday that he intended to roll out legislation and attempt to pass it this week, even while he acknowledged that he didn’t yet have any formal buy-in from his colleagues. He also appeared to know by earlier in the day Wednesday that he was running into a roadblock, saying in an interview that he expected Paul to offer a counterproposal.