After months of Senate Majority Leader John Thune grudgingly telling Donald Trump that he can’t always deliver what the president wants, tensions reached a new level in recent weeks, including at a recent rally in Georgia, where Trump called out the South Dakota Republican by name.
“It’s like the Senate is where you send things you want them to die,” he said about the Thune-led chamber. “We’re not going to be able to take it much longer.”
A few days later, asked about the president’s perspective on the Senate majority leader, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune. (She didn’t say what would happen when the president’s patience does run out.)
This week, during an unrelated event in the Oval Office, a reporter reminded Trump that Thune continues to say he lacks the votes to pass a sweeping voter suppression package the White House has labeled the SAVE America Act.
“He’s got the votes,” Trump replied, pointing to legislative circumstances that don’t appear to exist. “[Thune] should get it done.”
As part of the same exchange, a reporter asked whether Trump believes Thune is “still the man for the job.”
“Well, we’re going to find out,” the president replied, “and I’ll let you know.”
Punchbowl News reported soon after, “We’ve seen this movie for a decade. President Donald Trump gets tired of an ally he no longer finds useful and kicks them to the curb. Is Senate Majority Leader John Thune heading in that direction?”
Time will tell, but when Thune was asked about Trump’s comments, the South Dakotan told Punchbowl News, “All right. Well, that’s nice of him, I guess. I don’t know — what do you say on that? That’s a decision that’s made by my colleagues.”
It was that last part of his response that stood out — because it seemed like a rather pointed reminder that Trump doesn’t get to choose the Senate GOP’s leader. Senate Republicans do.
Indeed, whether the president understands this or not, Thune is not Trump’s problem. Under the Senate’s rules, the president’s voter suppression plan would need 60 votes to advance. Trump’s solution to this would be to eliminate the filibuster rule, but (a) Thune doesn’t have the votes to make that happen; and (b) even if he did, the anti-voting bill still wouldn’t have the votes to pass.
The president’s impatience is largely irrelevant. Trump could try to orchestrate Thune’s ouster, but his successor would tell the president the same thing.
What’s more, it’s far from clear that Trump would succeed even if he did try to orchestrate Thune’s ouster. Last week, quite a few GOP senators rallied behind Thune in the face of the White House offensive, exacerbating tensions between Trump and his own party’s Senate conference roughly three months before the midterm elections.
I remain mindful of the broader context and that Trump reflexively looks for someone to blame after failure. He pushed for a radical anti-voting proposal; it’s not going well, and he needs a fall guy who isn’t him. Holding Thune responsible is convenient, even if it doesn’t make sense.
But it’s also a sign of things to come. If the GOP struggles in the midterm elections in November, the White House is clearly laying the groundwork for a time when the president will effectively, if not literally, declare, “Don’t blame me, it’s Thune’s fault.”
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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