Senate GOP Needs New Leadership | The American Spectator

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that, despite a 53-47 Republican majority, the U.S. Senate is a graveyard for President Trump’s agenda. This is largely the fault of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who has never been a strong supporter of the President. Nonetheless, most Republicans hoped that Thune would work to advance Trump’s priorities, particularly after his decisive 2024 victory provided the momentum for the GOP to retake the Senate. But Thune’s refusal to get the SAVE America Act passed and his surrender to the Democrats on DHS funding — without additional money for ICE or CPB — dashed any hope that he has the right stuff to be Majority Leader.

President Trump and House Republicans have tried to be patient with Thune’s inertia, but that is over with. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who has done everything in his power to work with the Majority Leader on the SAVE America Act, sent a clear signal to him during a Fox News interview with Kayleigh McEnany on Saturday: “If you don’t want to fight fires, don’t become a firefighter. If you don’t want to take grueling votes at difficult hours and sometimes have to work longer than you want to, then maybe you shouldn’t become a United States Senator.” Also on Fox News, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) was far more explicit about how Senate Republicans should respond to Thune’s collusion with Senate Democrats on DHS funding:

Obviously, the leadership in the Senate — and that’s on both sides of the aisle — has a real disgust for this President and House leadership because they didn’t even have the guts to call speaker Mike Johnson and let him know what happened … The stereotype of Congress is, and it’s well deserved, is that we pass stuff in the dark of night because we don’t have any guts, and that’s clearly what’s shown in the Senate leadership. I think they need to get some new leadership over there, in my opinion.

House Speaker Mike Johnson referred the Senate’s partial DHS funding bill in the following terms: “This gambit that was done last night is a joke.” He then read the excerpt of the bill that cuts ICE and CPB funding and emphatically stated, “We’re not doing that! And it is unconscionable to me that the Democrats would force some sort of negotiation at 3 o’clock in the morning and try to foist this on the American people.” It’s understandable that Johnson would be reluctant to attack Thune but it was the Majority Leader who added the disgraceful amendment to the DHS bill according to a report in the New York Times. Yet this is how Thune described the garbage he dumped on the House as he left town on Friday morning:

Let’s summarize where we are after a 40+ day Democrat shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

1) ICE and CBP are funded, thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts and the foresight of President Trump and Republicans in Congress.

2) After holding DHS and the American people hostage for over 40 days, Dems got ZERO restrictions that would prevent ICE and CBP agents from doing their jobs safely.

3) Due to Dem obstruction of the appropriations process, ICE and CBP will get even more funding through budget reconciliation.

4) Dems have once again established themselves as the “Open Borders, Defund the Police” party heading into an election.

5) Dem leadership has proven once again they can’t be trusted to make a deal.

Which begs the question if you’re a Dem senator or one of their left-wing supporters: What was this really all about?

This is an attempt by Thune to avoid responsibility for a crisis he and other RINOs created by clinging to the 60-vote cloture rule and refusing to force the Democrats to endure a genuine filibuster. As Sen. Lee wrote Friday, “The Senate GOP has exactly two options if it wants to avoid drifting into irrelevance and a stunning loss in November: (1) Keep the filibuster and 60-vote cloture rule fully intact, but stand ready to overcome Senate Democrats’ unprecedented pattern of obstruction by aggressively enforcing the “talking filibuster,” a move that would require senators to work longer, harder hours and take fewer recesses, but lead to more thoughtful, careful deliberation in the legislative process, OR (2) Nuke the filibuster.

Rather than facing this basic binary choice, Majority Leader Thune preferred to cobble together a dirty deal in the middle of the night and go on vacation while honest Republicans attempt to clean up his mess. Thune isn’t preserving the “zombie filibuster” for the sake of the institution. He’s doing it because he’s afraid of change — the same reason he won’t force the Democrats to endure a talking filibuster. The word “Senate” is derived from the Latin word senex, which means “old man.” The framers emulated the Romans when they wrote the Constitution but the Free Republic never gave their Senate the power to pass laws. Why? Because they knew old men dislike change. Thus, Thune likes the cloture rule and hates President Trump.

READ MORE from David Catron:

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