Tensions rise between GOP leader Thune, White House over stalled Trump agenda

Tensions are rising between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and President Trump over the Senate GOP’s inability to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act or emergency funding for the Pentagon at a critical moment during Trump’s second term.

At a rally in Marietta, Ga., on Wednesday, Trump fumed at the Senate’s failure to advance his agenda, telling a crowd: “We’re having a hard time in the Senate. … It’s like the Senate is a place you send things when you want them to die.”

Then on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump’s “patience is running out” with Thune as he struggles to move the president’s agenda through the Senate.

That criticism didn’t sit well with Thune, who appeared annoyed when a reporter asked about the press secretary’s comments.

“Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes. Right? It’s 50 around here,” Thune shot back.

“Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats,” Thune added. “And if there are Republicans they think are gettable, get on the phone.”

Thune’s allies rushed to his defense and criticized the White House for undercutting the Senate GOP leader publicly.

“I have 1000 percent confidence in Thune, and anybody in the White House who thinks he’s not a good leader isn’t qualified for their job,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.) declared in response to the White House criticism.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) — who voted against the SAVE America Act when the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered it as an amendment to a budget reconciliation also defended Thune.

“In 1789, after returning from serving as U.S. Minister in France, Thomas Jefferson reputedly asked George Washington, while they were having breakfast one morning, why Washington had agreed to the creation of the United States Senate in the Constitution. Noting the saucer on which Jefferson’s hot coffee, or tea, rested, Washington explained, “we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.” No one knows if this story is really true, but it nonetheless nicely captures what the Framers hoped to achieve in establishing the United States Senate.

Most importantly, as reflected in Article I, Section 3, the Framers designed the Senate, like they had other fixtures within the Constitution, such as the Electoral College and the judiciary, to be counter majoritarian. The Framers’ distrust of tyrannies extended to popular majorities that they worried would act as unruly mobs, and the Senate was originally constructed and empowered to function in ways that frustrated direct democracy and kept the House of Representatives in check. Whereas the Constitution provided that members of the House of Representatives would each be elected by popular majorities in their respective districts, the Constitution originally treated Senators quite differently. In the original design, Senators were chosen by their respective State legislatures; indeed, as a result, they were subject to instruction and recall if they did not do what their legislatures told them to do.”

The Founders also feared what they called the “Tyranny of the majority,” something the “all government should bow to Trump” people simply don’t get.

Replacing him won’t change the math.

Nah. It's just that Thune is a sold-out cheap labor whore with a limp dick.

A real Senate leader could twist arms, enforce party discipline and change the math. It's something a surrender monkey like you wouldn't understand.

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