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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) are working on a deal to fund the federal government and start the Senate’s August recess, but they face opposition from President Trump’s allies who want to rack up more GOP accomplishments.
Thune’s top priorities are to confirm a package of 74 Trump nominees and to pass a continuing resolution to fund government through Dec. 11 to avoid another government shutdown before the midterm elections.
He also wants to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general, but he hasn’t yet locked down the “yes” votes of two key Republican holdouts: Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Senate Democrats have offered to speed up the floor time for voting on those top three priorities if Republican leaders agree to set aside several other bills they’d hoped to advance, according to senators familiar with the endgame maneuvering.
Specifically, Democrats want to avoid votes before the August recess on the Clarity Act, a sweeping market structure reform bill favored by the cryptocurrency industry, and a budget resolution to set the stage for a third reconciliation package to fund the war in Iran and grants to states to tighten rules for registering to vote and casting a ballot.
Two other bills in the mix are a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill and the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan measure to reform eligibility and compensation rules for college athletes.
However, senators in both parties are pushing to vote on amendments to those measures, which could delay them from getting finished on the Senate floor before the August recess.
Some Republican senators said the Russia sanctions bill could get voted on as soon as Thursday evening.
Vice President Vance met with GOP senators for lunch at the Capitol Thursday afternoon where he reiterated that Trump wants the Senate to fund the government and pass a budget resolution to unlock the budget reconciliation process before leaving for the August recess, according to senators who attended the meeting.
Much of the meeting, however, was focused on the military conflict with Iran and negotiations to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Senate Republicans walked out of the Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor with little guidance on how much longer they would be stuck in Washington waiting for a deal to fund the government and confirm Blanche.
“I’m confused,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do and if we do anything, when we’re going to do it.
“I’m fairly confident that we’re going to do the CR,” he said, referring to the continuing resolution to fund the government past the election.
But Kennedy warned that if Democrats don’t yield back procedural time on the floor, it could require the Senate to work over the weekend and through next week — the first week of the recess — to complete everything on Thune’s agenda.
“Listening to … our staff who know the rules, my best guess is to get all of our business done would take working all this weekend and all next week,” he said. “In order to get an agreement with the Democrats, as opposed to just doing stuff by regular order, they’re going to insist on we not take care of all of our business.”
One GOP senator said he has already asked his staff to begin canceling flights and backup flights home, anticipating the Senate to be voting Friday and possibly through the weekend on various agenda items.
Some conservatives, led by Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), continue to push for a lengthy floor debate and marathon series of votes on a budget resolution before leaving for the August recess.
“I think we should vote,” Johnson said after meeting with Vance and Senate GOP colleagues to discuss the agenda.
Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), another Trump ally, said he still hopes the Senate can pass a budget resolution before leaving for a five-week recess.
“It’s only a matter of time before we pass the CR and hopefully we can get the votes to pass the budget, too,” he said.
Asked if Vance told senators he wants the budget to pass a budget resolution before leaving town, Banks said: “Yeah, pass the SAVE America Act, pass the budget, pass the CR.”
“It was a healthy conversation,” he said. “Everybody is eager to get things done and start the August recess.”
But the proposal to begin voting on a budget resolution, which if passed would unlock the reconciliation process to circumvent a Democratic filibuster, is getting strong pushback from other Republican senators.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a competitive reelection race, pointed out to colleagues during a meeting Wednesday that any budget resolution needed to pass a third reconciliation bill would involve as many as 11 different committees, which could force Republicans to take votes on an array of tough political issues.
A second GOP senator who requested anonymity said that if the budget resolution comes up on the Senate floor, it would not have 50 Republican votes to advance.
Thune has warned publicly for weeks that he doesn’t see 50 GOP votes to proceed to a budget debate and vote-a-rama.
That has Republican senators looking instead at voting on a House-passed bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, which includes a requirement that voters show photo identification in federal elections. The Stop Insider Trading Act passed the House 232 to 198 last month.
Democrats, however, may be reluctant to vote on the bill as they staunchly oppose the SAVE America Act and requiring voters to show photo identification is an element of that bill.
While Democrats say they are generally in favor of requiring voters to show photo identification, there are disagreements between the parties over how to implement that rule.
“There’s a lot of discussion of, ‘Look, if we can’t get a budget resolution moving forward, can we at least do a show of support for voter ID,’” the GOP senator said, citing the stock trading ban.
“If the president is looking to do something on election integrity, this is one step that allows us to do that,” the source said.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Chuck Schumer Donald Trump Jim Banks John Kennedy John Thune Ron Johnson Susan Collins Todd BlancheCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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