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The relationship between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans hit a new low point on Wednesday as he showered them with disapproval on a day that was supposed to spotlight party unity.
Trump started the day threatening to block Congress’ biggest bipartisan legislation of his second term over a voter ID bill that faces no path to law — casting a pall over a Capitol that had already begun celebrating a rare cost-of-living victory. Then he castigated GOP senators in a private meeting, leaving them divided after nearly six weeks of rising frustration over a lack of coordination.
The president focused on his grievances with his party’s senators: that they won’t kill the filibuster and haven’t passed new voter ID requirements; that they passed a nonbinding resolution ending an Iran war that he claims is over.
He left them unsure of what happens next on a housing bill he claimed to support but now refuses to sign, having publicly derided it as much less important than the new voter ID legislation he’s pushing. That bill lacked the votes to break a filibuster even before Trump sought to load it up with provisions that divide the GOP.
“I don’t know if stuck is the right word. But we probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. told Semafor after the meeting.
Trump first began antagonizing Senate Republicans last month by endorsing challenges to two of their own incumbents. GOP lawmakers now have such a strained dynamic with him that many of them avoided talking about Wednesday’s meeting at all. One Republican senator gave an eye roll to Semafor when asked, then declined to comment.
“The president closed by preaching unity. And he spent the first hour and five minutes criticizing various members of the Republican caucus,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I primarily listened. I think there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for dialogue.”
Beyond housing, things are looking even more dire for the Republican Congress. A key surveillance law has expired with no path to revival right now, and Trump has installed an acting director of national intelligence who many Republicans do not think is fit for the role. Trump has sidelined his own permanent nominee for that job to also push the voter ID bill, and he seems unmoved by his party’s complaints about his chaotic style.
Aside from voter ID, he spent much of his time on Wednesday railing against the Senate for passing a war powers resolution on Iran that would have failed if Republicans had been at full attendance on Tuesday. (Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., described him as “mad as a murder hornet about” it.) Sen. David McCormick, R-Pa., was with Trump during that vote, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is recovering from a health issue.
“If I was the president and I was in the middle of a negotiation to protect American lives, I would be frustrated too,” said Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who invited Trump to the Capitol in his capacity as Republican Steering Committee chairman.
When it comes to the filibuster, Cramer said no one challenged the president because there was nothing new to say. But Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. — one of the two incumbents Trump ousted — clashed with him over the agreement to wind down the war, according to multiple attendees.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said “it was not a good discussion … sometimes two guys just have to get it off their chest.” Cassidy deadpanned that things went “swimmingly” and that the clash was prompted by Trump asking “why anybody would vote for the War Powers Act.”
Trump also chided hawkish critics, telling Senate Republicans that “some of you here would love for me to keep bombing, and that would mean hurting a lot of people,” according to a person briefed on the meeting.
Afterward, Trump said it was a “great meeting” and praised Senate Majority Leader John Thune, before concluding that “I don’t like a few people … but for the most part we have a really well unified party.”
A second person briefed on the meeting offered a more blunt assessment: “Total clusterf*ck. No unity.”
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Some Trump aides were caught off-guard by the president’s decision to cancel the bipartisan housing bill’s signing in the Capitol, particularly given the GOP’s growing desperation to show voters it’s using its total control of Washington to lower costs ahead of midterms.
Just hours before, top allies and officials were touting the soon-to-be law as a win for Republicans.
But some senators said they weren’t surprised. Trump, long fixated on the voter ID bill, threatened in March not to sign other legislation until it passed. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a vocal proponent of the bill, attended the Capitol lunch with Trump on Wednesday.
“Use leverage and use the bully pulpit,” one person close to the White House argued. “The president has a history of taking the impossible to the inevitable — just ask Nicolas Maduro.”
But other Trump allies, particularly GOP lawmakers, fear his singular focus on voter ID is imperiling the party’s ability to get anything done. Thune has told Trump that the bill can’t pass on a regular basis; other senators have begun reinforcing that.
“I just want it to become law, so I’d like to have him tell us whether he’s going to let it become law without a signing, or if it’s got to be returned to us for veto override, or whatever,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said of the housing bill.
“He’s very sincere” about the voter measure, Rounds added, noting that he cosponsored it. “But once again, we just simply don’t have the votes.”
Room for Disagreement
Some of the Republican senators at Wednesday’s lunch said the venting session could help their party work together better moving forward.
“Not all of the meeting was contentious,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.. “But there’s a general consensus that we on Capitol Hill have to start getting in lockstep [with the White House] and vice versa. We both have to coordinate; make sure our messaging and timing is in better sync.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, told Semafor ahead of the lunch that she’s “disappointed he’s not doing the signing today, but I get his frustration” about the voter ID plan known as SAVE America.
“I’m thinking we need to just continue voting on voter ID. We may not be able to get the entire package over the finish line, but maybe voter ID. And I think that will help and ease the president’s frustrations a bit with us,” Ernst said.
Burgess, Eleanor, and Shelby’s View
Wednesday could have been a big messaging opportunity for Trump. The housing bill is an example of the president delivering on his promises, and Republicans opened the day by highlighting the democratic socialists who upset establishment Democrats in primaries last night.
But Trump derailed those plans, and the day instead became focused on the internecine fighting that continues to engulf his party. Republicans need to end the internal dysfunction if they want to avoid a rough midterms in November.
Notable
- Thune told Semafor on Tuesday that he tries to “shoot straight” when it comes to telling Trump there aren’t the votes for priorities like voter ID.
Nicholas Wu, Lauren Morganbesser, and Adrian Elimian contributed.