Senate Majority Leader John Thune thought he had a plan.
President Trump wanted a loyal attack dog as acting director of national intelligence. Democrats and some Republicans were appalled by his pick, Bill Pulte, and threatened to hold up renewing a key spy tool until he was yanked. So Thune pressed for a more palatable permanent director, allowing the Senate to swiftly confirm him before Pulte took the reins.
When Trump then nominated Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to take the job permanently, crisis seemed averted.
Then, just hours before the confirmation hearing was scheduled to begin last week, Trump blew up that plan, writing in a 4 a.m. social media post that he would not sign legislation reauthorizing the spy tool unless it also included the Save America Act, the strict voter ID law he wants.
Blowback was swift, as simmering tensions between Trump and Senate Republicans spilled into public view. Trump is set to meet with Senate Republicans for lunch on Wednesday as some say the president's erratic moves risk derailing their shared agenda.
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly torched Senate Republicans online and imploded their plans without warning as he vents his frustration with Thune for being unable to pass the controversial voting measure.
The dynamic is testing Republican unity across branches of government at a critical time, with the Senate and House majorities on the line this fall in the midterm elections.
And while the president has for years enjoyed unbending loyalty from all but a few GOP lawmakers, the strength of that relationship appears to be fraying as some departing members feel more uninhibited to push back and more members of Congress begin to envision life after Trump.
Growing outcry from Senate Republicans
Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who accused Trump of treating the Senate like a manufacturing department for the executive branch rather than its board of directors, said if Trump understood the repercussions of his moves around Pulte and acted anyway, it was a "colossal mistake."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, compared Trump's swerving to a moose startling a pack of sled dogs.
"If some big distraction like a moose comes through these trees, and you got half the team going over here and half the team going over there, it is chaos," Murkowski explained, using a photo in her office as a visual aid. "What that musher has to do is he's got to stop and spend all his time untangling this mess."
Thune has been trying to untangle a lot of mess lately as Trump tries to strong-arm or sidestep Congress.
For days, top congressional Republicans say they were left in the dark on the text of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran. Four Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on Tuesday to advance a war powers resolution directing Trump to pull back forces from the conflict with Iran, which has not been authorized by Congress.
A last-ditch effort by Trump to pass the Save America Act nearly derailed a vote on another of Trump's top priorities, funding for immigration enforcement. Trump's support for an "anti-weaponization" fund that could have compensated January 6th rioters resulted in the key spy tool known as FISA 702 lapsing in the first place.
"He's got two speeds, uninterested and the speed of light," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., says of Trump, whom he speaks with regularly. "And the things that are important to him, he moves at the speed of light."
Thune, though, often ends up in the position of having to give the president a reality check. The majority leader has been clear that there are not enough votes in the narrowly divided Senate to pass the Save America Act, which has already failed to advance several times. Nor are there enough votes to dismantle the filibuster to muscle it through, as Trump is demanding.
"It's a function of the math," Thune recently said on Fox News. "We've got to deal with the real world."
Even after this latest outcry from Senate Republicans, Trump doubled down, calling out Thune by name on social media and writing that anyone who opposes nixing the filibuster is a "fool."
"The White House and President Trump have enjoyed working closely with Leader Thune and Senate Republicans to deliver on many important promises to the American people," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in a statement.
Kennedy says Trump's friction with the majority leader is not personal. "If you don't like John Thune, you don't like golden retrievers," Kennedy said last week.
Most Senate Republicans agree with that sentiment — and with Thune's assessment that the votes just don't exist to do what Trump wants. A few exceptions, like Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, continue to insist the Save America Act can pass and say the public supports many of its provisions, helping fuel Trump's ongoing push to act.
Why Thune wants to preserve the filibuster
Thune has told reporters that he fears eliminating the filibuster would haunt Republicans the next time Democrats take power again. Scrapping it would eliminate the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most legislation, gutting a rare point of leverage for the minority in the Senate.
Still, Adam Jentleson, a former top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the late Nevada Democrat, says Thune and his predecessors have slowly chipped away at the rule, including passing more major legislation with a simple majority through the party-line budget reconciliation process.
"What you see is sort of death by a thousand cuts, where both Republicans and Democrats are increasing the number of carve-outs to the filibuster rule," says Jentleson, who wrote a book on the filibuster, Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy.
Former Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia acknowledges Thune is no hammer like Reid or another one of his other predecessors, Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, but says the amiable South Dakotan is just right for this moment.
Chambliss says Thune is a level-headed former college basketball player whose defense of the filibuster is about preserving the Senate's consensus-driven nature.
"He feels very strongly that the institution of the United States Senate matters," Chambliss says. "And we get the best pieces of legislation when you have input by Republicans and Democrats."
Chambliss says the former colleagues he regularly speaks with are frustrated by Trump's actions. He still keeps in touch with Thune and says his old friend recognizes the delicate position he is in.
"He used to be a guy who would roll with every punch," Chambliss says. "Right now, every time he twitches, I can see anxiety. But thank goodness he's there."
Could a focus on 2020 risk the GOP majority?
For Trump, a lot rides on the Save America Act. He wrote in a recent social media post that without it, "The Republican Party will never win another Election. I will sadly be the last Republican president."
But the president has himself complicated his party's path to holding the majority this fall by helping push out incumbents he says have not been loyal enough, fueling more intraparty tension and pushback.
Though Congress this week passed a sweeping bipartisan housing bill, lawmakers have also spent significant time trying to anticipate and react to Trump's moves. Some Republicans have grown frustrated with some of Trump's comments, like saying he doesn't "think about Americans' financial situation."
Some Republicans see Trump's fixation on the 2020 election imperiling an agenda that could help Republicans in 2026. Asked about that recently, Thune answered indirectly.
"At least as far as I'm concerned, I think our path to keeping the majority in the Senate is going to be focused on the issues that the American people are most concerned about," Thune told reporters last week. "Kitchen table pocketbook issues. Is my community safe, is my country safe? I think those are going to be paramount."
But is it harder to focus on that now?
"I'm doing my best to stay focused," Thune said as he disappeared into his office off the Senate floor.
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