NOW PLAYING
Senate Republicans are scrambling for a plan to exit Washington for a five-week August recess that won’t anger President Trump, who has demanded they stay in town for as long as necessary to pass a reconciliation blueprint and elements of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act.
Both items have little chance of success.
Republicans left a lunch meeting Tuesday afternoon frustrated by the lack of a clear plan to wrap up the July work period, which has now stretched into August.
“To be honest, it was a pretty worthless meeting,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “I have no idea where we are.”
“If there’s a plan, they’re doing a really good job of hiding it,” he fumed.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said his top priorities are to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government until Dec. 11 and a package of 74 of Trump’s nominees.
He also said confirming Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general is high on the list.
Blanche’s nomination was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning after Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (N.C.), two GOP holdouts, voted yes.
“We’re juggling a lot of balls right now, but there are some things we intend to get done this week, and the first is to ensure we get about 75 of the president’s nominations through, en bloc,” Thune said after meeting with his GOP colleagues.
“The other thing of course we need to do is fund the government,” he said, noting the Senate voted 89-4 on Monday evening to advance the continuing resolution. “It’s important in my view that we can demonstrate to the American people that we can do job one. Job one is ensuring that their federal government is working and funded.”
But Thune reiterated Tuesday that there aren’t enough votes to pass the SAVE America Act, even as he acknowledged Trump continues to push to get that bill passed.
The Senate has already voted five times unsuccessfully on the measure.
“It seems to me some days that I’m the only one here who can count to 50 in this town,” Thune said, with a note of irritation in his voice.
Democrats are willing to speed up floor votes on a Russia sanctions bill, the stopgap funding bill and Blanche’s confirmation if Republicans agree to push off any consideration of a budget resolution to fund the Iran war and election reforms until after the August recess, according to senators familiar with discussions about how to wrap up work before the monthlong break.
The budget resolution would have an uphill climb even if Republicans attempted to advance it.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is signaling that she’ll likely vote against proceeding to it, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is absent battling a health issue — which means any budget resolution that comes to the floor would be teetering on the brink of defeat from the start.
“You know my views on where we are with reconciliation,” the Alaska Republican said Tuesday.
Murkowski in June was the only Republican to vote against the second budget reconciliation package, which funded Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, because she saw the three-and-a-half-year funding package as undermining the appropriations process.
Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) are demanding offsets to any budget reconciliation package to fund the conflict with Iran and other priorities.
The $95 billion budget framework passed by the House last month doesn’t include spending offsets. That could push Cassidy and Paul into the “no” column.
Even so, some Republican senators are insisting on a vote on a budget resolution — something that Trump has demanded on social media — which could pave the way for a future budget reconciliation bill funding the military, financial relief to farmers and $10 billion in incentives to states to enact election reforms.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) says he has a budget resolution ready to be voted on, but he hasn’t yet circulated the measure for colleagues to review.
The big problem facing Thune is that it’s far from certain whether there are 50 Republican votes to even proceed to a budget resolution.
And there’s little desire in the GOP conference to allow Democrats to force them to take a slew of tough amendment votes, which passing a budget resolution would require.
“There are certain people that don’t want to vote” on the budget resolution “because some people want to vote against it, and then you have Trump up your can,” said a GOP senator who requested anonymity to discuss colleagues’ reluctance to vote on starting a third budget reconciliation process.
The senator said GOP colleagues facing tough reelection races aren’t eager to vote on a budget framework that Democratic opponents could frame as providing funding for the unpopular military conflict with Iran.
A second GOP senator who requested anonymity said polling shows the war is deeply unpopular with independents and that Republican voters are starting to turn against it as well.
“It’s terrible, just terrible. Democrats, of course, hate it. Independents detest it, Republicans are lukewarm,” the senator said.
The other obstacle to wrapping up for the August recess this week is that Thune is pushing for a vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity, or CLARITY Act, a sweeping market structure reform bill favored by the cryptocurrency industry.
“We’re going to vote on CLARITY, yup,” Thune declared.
Democrats are trying to stop the bill from coming up for a vote because they say the conflict-of-interest provisions addressing the Trump family’s massive cryptocurrency investments aren’t strong enough.
“No one should be supporting an act that permits Donald Trump to apparently take bribes out in public to make $1.4 billion on a crypto venture that costs the people who follow him more than $3 billion,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, who is leading opposition to the bill.
A Democratic senator who requested anonymity said Democrats should insist that Thune punt a vote on the cryptocurrency bill until after the August recess in exchange for speeding up votes on a Russia sanctions bill, the continuing resolution and Blanche’s nomination.
Democrats want to avoid voting on the bill altogether because some of them worry that if they block the measure, it could trigger a tidal wave of negative political advertising funded by the crypto industry.
The Russia sanctions bill is also in the mix of things to do before senators leave for the August recess, but its progress has been slowed because of a hold placed by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who wants to change the tariff language in the legislation.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Paul also want an amendment to strip out tariffs from the Russia sanctions bill.
Thune said Tuesday if Democrats agree to yield back floor time on the Russia sanctions legislation, he will allow them to vote on an amendment to the bill.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made a lengthy pitch at the Senate Republican lunch Tuesday to hold votes before the August recess on the Protect College Sports Act, which he crafted with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to reform rules for compensating college athletes.
But Cantwell on Tuesday expressed doubt about getting the college sports bill wrapped up before senators leave town, pointing to an imaginary watch on her wrist to indicate that time is running too short to get the complex bill debated and passed.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags John Kennedy John Thune Ron JohnsonCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Comments: Link copiedMore Senate News
See All
House Republicans stand behind Trump on Iran even as unpopularity of conflict grows by Sudiksha Kochi 1 hour ago House / 1 hour ago 
