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President Trump and Republican senators are headed for a collision Wednesday, when they will be meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss two major sources of strain: the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act and the Iran peace deal.
Republican senators are bracing themselves for an unpredictable, and potentially heated, discussion as tensions have been building with the president for weeks.
The meeting will give Trump’s critics within the GOP conference a chance to air their grievances like they did during an explosive meeting with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche last month.
Yet, most Republicans are reluctant to challenge Trump to his face after watching him end the political careers of Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.) and John Cornyn (Texas) this spring by endorsing their political opponents in GOP primaries.
The biggest disagreement between Trump and many Senate Republicans centers on whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) should abolish the filibuster — or drastically change how the filibuster rule is interpreted — or fire the Senate parliamentarian to push the SAVE America Act past Democratic opposition.
“It’s probably Thune’s worst nightmare for many reasons. Donald Trump is so unpredictable, and Thune’s loyalty is to his conference and the Senate conference’s loyalty is to each other, it’s not to Donald Trump,” said a Republican strategist, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive dynamics of the meeting.
“Donald Trump is a complete wild card, and so anything can come out of this, and I don’t know that Thune has any choice but to have to agree,” the source added. “Pop the popcorn, it’s going to be great.”
Thune has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s demand to abolish the filibuster, arguing he lacks the 50 votes in the Senate GOP conference that would be necessary to do so.
And Thune has resisted demands to force Democrats to actively hold the Senate floor with continuous debate — the so-called talking filibuster — as a way to break their filibuster of the SAVE America Act.
Thune has also pushed back on Trump’s call to fire Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, arguing she has made rulings that helped Republicans and warning that firing her could sow chaos in the chamber.
Yet Senate conservatives seem intent on setting up a frank conversation between Trump and GOP colleagues who want to move past the SAVE America Act after five different votes on the bill failed to advance it.
Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.), the chair of the Senate Republican Steering Committee, invited Trump to the Capitol this week without giving Thune or other GOP colleagues much of a heads-up — setting up an impromptu discussion at a time when relations between the Trump White House and a group of GOP senators are at their lowest point of Trump’s second term.
Thune told reporters that Scott invited Trump to the Capitol and informed him about it after the fact, catching the GOP leader off guard.
“It’s a Steering Committee lunch. It’s his prerogative, he invites the guests,” Thune said.
Asked if he got a heads-up, Thune replied: “He told me he did it.”
A Senate GOP aide said the invitation caught many Republicans by surprise.
Scott announced Trump’s scheduled appearance at the lunch on Fox News.
The meeting sets the stage for a difficult conversation over how to handle the SAVE America Act, which Trump has called his No. 1 legislative priority and demanded last week be attached to a must-pass bill to extend enhanced surveillance authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Cornyn said one of the biggest sources of friction between Trump and GOP senators is that the president isn’t used to being told “no,” especially during his second term in the White House, throughout which he has surrounded himself with loyalists.
“I don’t think the president is used to people telling him what he doesn’t want to hear,” Cornyn said Monday. “Sen. Thune, to his credit, has told him the truth and that is we don’t have the votes” to pass the SAVE America Act.
Despite the weeks of floor debate, four Republican senators voted against Trump’s preferred version of the SAVE America Act when it was offered as an amendment to the $70 billion budget reconciliation package earlier this month.
Cornyn chided colleagues such as Scott and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) for suggesting to Trump that he could still find a way to pass the legislation — even though the parliamentarian has determined it cannot pass with 50 votes under the budget reconciliation process and there aren’t any Democratic votes to help it get over the usual 60-vote threshold.
“I think Mike Lee is contributing to this fantasy that somehow it’s going to happen. I’ve been around here long enough and been through enough battles and counted enough votes to know that it doesn’t just magically occur, no matter how much you wish it would happen,” Cornyn said.
“I think this is contributing to too much infighting, which is not helpful to us in terms of our chances of winning the midterm,” he added.
Lee has relentlessly pushed the SAVE America Act on social media, keeping pressure on Thune and other GOP leaders to bring it back to the Senate floor, even though it still doesn’t have a clear path to Trump’s desk.
The Utah senator clapped back at Cornyn on social media Monday afternoon.
“It’s only halftime, but let’s end the game now — because we’re 14 points behind and can’t see a clear path to victory,” Lee posted on the social platform X.
Lee has called on GOP leaders to cancel the summer recess to keep senators in Washington to debate the voting reform bill.
Trump and Republican senators may also clash over the memorandum of understanding (MOU) the Trump administration signed with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Senate Republicans were frustrated last week that their requests for a briefing on the MOU were ignored, and many are deeply skeptical of the agreement.
Thune said he expects the thorny subject to come up at Wednesday’s meeting.
“This will be a good opportunity for a back-and-forth,” he said, adding his view that he wants to “tie” the lifting of sanctions to “conditions on Iranian behavior.”
A second Senate Republican aide predicted that GOP senators will “vent” their frustrations over the deal at Wednesday’s meeting.
“I think people won’t have problems venting their concerns, whether that’s Trump or people in the Senate. I don’t think they’ll keep their powder dry,” the source said.
The GOP aide said Trump is also likely to press Republicans on his desire to abolish the so-called blue-slip practice, whereby senators are allowed the courtesy of blocking nominees to federal district-level courts and U.S attorney offices in their home states.
Trump lashed out at Senate Democrats last week for blocking James McDonald, his nominee to take over for Jay Clayton as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
He blasted Senate Republicans for holding “ridiculous views” about preserving the blue-slip objections that Democrats have raised against nominees to positions within their home states.
Trump ordered Clayton, his nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, to not show up for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week in part because of his frustration over Democrats not allowing McDonald to be confirmed.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday called Trump’s demands to abolish the filibuster and the blue-slip power to block home-state nominees a “non-starter.”
He urged GOP colleagues to tell Trump bluntly that he’s not going to get his way on those two issues and should shift his focus to other priorities.
“The blue slip, the nuclear option on the filibuster, none of those are going to happen, period. And we need to be honest with the president,” he said. “Why don’t we spend more time being productive about how we communicate, when we communicate and get some of these [other] very pressing issues done.”
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Bill Cassidy Donald Trump Elizabeth MacDonough John Cornyn John Thune Mike Lee Rick Scott Todd BlancheCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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