{"id":1390,"date":"2026-06-17T23:08:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1390"},"modified":"2026-06-17T23:08:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T23:08:50","slug":"senate-republicans-grow-increasingly-frustrated-with-trump-blindsiding-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1390","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans grow increasingly frustrated with Trump blindsiding them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 As President Donald Trump scrambles to wrap up his war with Iran, he\u2019s escalating another one much closer to home, against members of his own party in Congress. <\/p>\n

Read more Why Trump\u2019s Iran agreement could be a tough sell for Republicans: From the Politics Desk<\/a><\/p>\n

From the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in France, Trump ordered the Senate on Wednesday to cancel an afternoon hearing for Jay Clayton, his nominee to be director of national intelligence, and threatened not to sign a reauthorization of a critical surveillance law unless the Senate passed a sweeping election bill that has already failed \u2014 repeatedly.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The hearing delay not only blindsided and frustrated Senate Republicans, but it also completely derailed Majority Leader John Thune\u2019s carefully laid plans to fast-track the nomination in a bid to unlock Democratic votes for the now-expired spying program.<\/p>\n

Asked why Trump would pull the rug out from under them, Thune, R-S.D., said, \u201cGood question.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Clayton incident isn\u2019t the first time in recent weeks Trump has made Thune\u2019s life more difficult.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Trump and Senate Republicans are on different pages, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, replied, \u201cIt may not be so much a different page, but he\u2019s turning it ahead without telling us about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The already fragile relationship is nearing a breaking point as Trump uses his clout to knock out senators in primaries, issue unachievable demands and repeatedly force the caucus into politically fraught positions. A number of Republican senators have expressed confusion, since his actions make it harder for them to push the White House\u2019s own agenda forward. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s undermining our ability to produce the very results he wants,\u201d said retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. He called the Clayton postponement \u201ca colossal mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

GOP leaders pleaded with Trump to nominate a permanent national intelligence director after his acting pick, Bill Pulte, created a bipartisan firestorm on Capitol Hill over his lack of national security experience. Pulte is a close Trump ally and housing official who has pushed for mortgage fraud investigations into the president\u2019s perceived enemies. <\/p>\n

Once it became clear GOP leaders were looking to move Clayton\u2019s nomination quickly \u2014 meaning Pulte would never step foot in the full-time role \u2014 Trump decided to throw a wrench into the process.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, after Trump instructed the Senate to stall his own nominee, some of his Republican allies said they\u2019ve never seen anything like it before.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I\u2019ve only been in the Senate for 11 years, so no, I haven\u2019t,\u201d said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who is running for re-election with Trump\u2019s endorsement. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement: \u201cThe 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, including the largest tax cut for working Americans in history, and the Secure America Act that fully funds the President\u2019s border security agenda. We look forward to continuing these close relationships and fulfilling President Trump\u2019s priorities that Americans elected him to enact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some rank-and-file Trump allies are trying to steer clear of the clashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could probably talk to other people around here. I don\u2019t get caught up in, like, the palace intrigue,\u201d Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said when he was asked about Trump\u2019s pushing to stall Clayton. \u201cThey tend to generally work themselves out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., repeatedly declined to answer questions from reporters Wednesday but, in announcing he would postpone the Clayton hearing, called the delay \u201cregrettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Democratic socialists are on the rise in Trump-era mayoral races<\/a><\/p>\n

Cotton\u2019s Democratic counterpart on the committee, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said that \u201cthis is not a problem between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate,\u201d placing the blame squarely on Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe threw a live hand grenade into this whole process,\u201d Warner said.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

It was just the latest instance in recent weeks of Trump\u2019s timing disrupting his own agenda on Capitol Hill. His requests for $1 billion in ballroom security money delayed the ICE and Border Patrol funding bill. His administration\u2019s announcement of a $1.8 billion \u201canti-weaponization\u201d fund to compensate allies stalled it even further. And his choice of Pulte came days before the FISA Section 702 program expired, ending any hopes of a deal by last Friday\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

Adding to Republican frustration was Trump\u2019s move to oust Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, with his endorsement of state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the primary. Not only is Cornyn well-liked among his colleagues, but GOP strategists also fear Paxton\u2019s nomination will make it tougher to hold the seat this fall, boosting Democrats\u2019 chances of winning control of the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about sympathy; it\u2019s about basically being able to function,\u201d Cornyn said when he was asked whether he\u2019s sympathetic to Thune\u2019s situation. \u201cI think part of the problem is not President Trump, it\u2019s us making unrealistic promises, and then when they\u2019re not attained, then criticizing one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Trump\u2019s allies, the small slights are adding up. On Monday, when senators arrived at the Capitol for afternoon votes, they were flying blind in the face of questions about the emerging Iran deal. They weren\u2019t given details, even as many of them have been asking to see the text of the memorandum of understanding. The White House sent them talking points later that evening, after they spent hours walking around the Capitol and addressing reporters.<\/p>\n

Asked Wednesday early afternoon about the memorandum of understanding with Iran, Schmitt replied, \u201cThe MOU that no one\u2019s seen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Thune appears to have been left in the dark. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen anything yet, so there\u2019s nothing really at this point to react to,\u201d he told reporters of the memorandum of understanding Tuesday morning, though Trump had announced the 60-day ceasefire Sunday. <\/p>\n

A senior U.S. official provided NBC News with a copy of the memorandum of understanding Wednesday, saying the U.S. originally held back on releasing the text at the request of Iran.<\/p>\n

Much of the tension stems from Trump\u2019s inability to secure his top legislative priority of passing the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election law to impose voting limits in every state. Democrats vehemently oppose it, ensuring it can\u2019t get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate. And most GOP senators are resolute in their opposition to abolishing the filibuster \u2014 another persistent Trump demand \u2014 seeing it as a long-term protector of conservative priorities.<\/p>\n

Trump has also tried \u2014 and failed \u2014 to get Republicans to fire the parliamentarian, essentially the Senate\u2019s referee, who has determined that the bill is ineligible for a simple-majority vote under Senate rules. And in a clear rebuke to Trump, his allies\u2019 attempts to add it to the ICE and Border Patrol funding bill this month couldn\u2019t even get 50 votes, losing four Republicans and failing 48-50.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way you could get there is to undo or get rid of the legislative filibuster, and there aren\u2019t even close to the votes here in the United States Senate in order to achieve that,\u201d Thune told reporters this month of the SAVE America Act. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that we\u2019re going to be able to get done absent having an election, electing some more Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked Wednesday about the Trump-Thune tensions, Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said that Thune speaks for the Republican conference and that nobody is vying to replace him. She said Thune is right to candidly tell Trump the votes aren\u2019t there to pass the election bill.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cHe should be as frank as he\u2019s being,\u201d Lummis said. \u201cMy favorite saying: Tell the truth; it\u2019s easier to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s new Fed chair is confirming some of Wall Street\u2019s \u2018fears\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As President Donald Trump scrambles to wrap up his war with Iran, he\u2019s escalating another one much closer to home, against members of his own party in Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress"],"yoast_head":"\nSenate Republicans grow increasingly frustrated with Trump blindsiding them - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1390\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Senate Republicans grow increasingly frustrated with Trump blindsiding them - 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