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President Trump’s demands that the Senate cancel its August recess to debate the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act and advance a budget reconciliation package to fund the Iran war have thrown Senate Republicans into disarray.
GOP senators are divided over whether to cut short the five-week break, which would take vulnerable Republican incumbent Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Jon Husted (Ohio) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) away from the campaign trail.
They’re also at odds over whether to dive into what Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) warned would be a “risky” attempt to pass a budget package that contains billions of dollars for an unpopular foreign conflict, as well as funding for farmers and election-related reforms.
Looming over it all are the fast-approaching midterms and festering frustration among some Republicans about the curveballs being thrown by the president.
Trump and his allies are pushing hard for the Senate to vote as soon as next week on a budget resolution to unlock the process to advance a $95 billion proposal drafted by the House to help cover the costs of the Iran war — even though Thune warned last week that such a proposal doesn’t have 50 Republican votes to advance in the Senate.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) says the Senate needs to vote next week to set the stage for passing Trump’s funding priorities — including $73 billion for the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence agencies — before the November election.
Johnson said budget reconciliation, which allows Republicans to circumvent a Democratic filibuster, could also be used as a last resort to pass a funding stopgap to avoid another government shutdown right before Election Day.
He said he’s been reaching out to individual members.
“I think we need to vote on the [continuing resolution] this week to see if Democrats are actually serious in wanting to fund the government at least through Dec. 4 … to give us the time next week to put forth a budget resolution and have the vote-a-rama before we leave,” Johnson said.
Thune, however, warned last week that the House-passed budget proposal doesn’t have 50 votes.
Senate Republican leaders have also warned it is “risky” to try to ram through funding for the Iran war right before the election, pointing out that Democrats will force vulnerable Senate GOP incumbents to take a series of politically tough votes during the unlimited back-to-back amendment votes known as a vote-a-rama.
“As I’ve said before you got to get to 50, and I can’t count to 50 right now on a budget resolution,” Thune said last week.
That comment didn’t satisfy Trump, who on Friday demanded that Thune and Senate Republicans adopt a budget resolution before leaving for the August recess.
Then Trump ratcheted up his demands on the already packed Senate GOP schedule by demanding that senators stay in session through August to pass the SAVE America Act, even though at least five previous attempts to pass the legislation in whole or part have failed.
The proposal to cancel some or all of the recess has sparked a firestorm in the Senate Republican conference.
“It has the potential to blow up” the conference, warned a Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss escalating tensions over canceling the recess. “It’s a very divisive concept.”
Some GOP senators are warning that any plan to stay in Washington through the hot and sticky month of August will only wind up disappointing GOP base voters when they fail to deliver the SAVE America Act.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned that setting unrealistic expectations for passing the election reform law, which is well short of having the 60 votes it needs to advance, will result in “demoralizing our base.”
Meanwhile, Trump has sprinkled criticisms of the Senate GOP majority in his recent public comments, deriding the Senate as “a place you send things when you want them to die” and then warning during comments on Air Force One Monday that Thune has “got to get his job done.”
The uncertainty over how to proceed with the midterm election only a little less than 100 days away was prolonged Tuesday when GOP senators cancelled their regular lunch meeting Tuesday to attend a memorial ceremony at the Capitol and a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), leaving the agenda in flux.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate GOP leadership team, said that Thune has a tough job balancing the priorities that were on the Senate GOP agenda with Trump’s latest demands.
Thune teed up a vote to proceed this week to a Russia sanctions bill crafted by Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and planned to vote soon on a continuing resolution to fund the government until early December.
Thune wants to confirm Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general and Keith Sonderling to head the Labor Department before August. He also plans to move a package of 74 lower-level Trump nominees across the floor.
Thune floated the possibility of voting on legislation to establish a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency this month. In addition, Thune needs to pass long-stalled legislation to extend authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that lapsed on June 12.
“This is the fun math that John Thune gets to do,” Lankford said, explaining that Thune will have to pivot between the legislative and executive calendars to move legislative business and Trump’s nominees simultaneously.
“There’s a ton of other things that need to get done,” he said.
“We have to be able to get the [continuing resolution.] We have to get that moving,” Lankford added, warning that another government shutdown must be avoided.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) urged Thune to put all the Republican priorities on the floor and just plow through them by scheduling a long line of votes.
“The short way to address all of these issues that everybody is fighting about is just to start voting. Take up the budget resolution, take up the Graham [Russia] sanctions bill, take up the [cryptocurrency] market structure bill — as soon as Clayton is confirmed — take up the FISA bill,” Kennedy said.
“The sight of the gallows concentrates the mind marvelously and senators will cuss and discuss these bills forever until they have to vote,” he added. “If it were me, the way to put an end to all of this debate about what the future holds [is] go vote.”
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