Thune becomes MAGA’s midterm ‘fall guy’ with voting bill crusade
What's the endgame here?
President Donald Trump is waging a relentless campaign to pass a national voter ID law that has the MAGA base primed to blame Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) if Republicans lose the midterm elections in November.
Thune has taken weeks of slings and arrows from the Right over his reluctance to weaken the Senate filibuster, a 60-vote threshold that is keeping the SAVE America Act from becoming law. It began as a social media outrage, then gained traction with pundits claiming Republicans were headed toward an electoral wipeout if the Senate did not act.
Trump sowed the seeds for that narrative last fall, when he urged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster to pass new election laws. But he’s more recently mounted a full-court press, refusing to take no for an answer after Thune told him the GOP votes aren’t there for that outcome.
The president nudged Thune at his State of the Union address in February as he repeated his unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud.
“We have to stop it, John,” Trump said from the lectern of the House floor.
Over the last week, his lobbying has gotten even more intense, with Trump announcing he won’t sign any bill, except for Department of Homeland Security funding, into law until the Senate sends the legislation to his desk. The SAVE America Act passed the House in February with unanimous Republican support.
“We’re going to push them to get it done, because I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID and these things. I don’t think the people in this country will stand for it,” Trump told House Republicans last Monday, calling it his “No. 1 priority” at an annual policy conference in Florida.
For now, the impasse is generating days of unwanted attention for Thune as Trump needles him to be a “leader” and eggs on House conservatives who are vowing to vote “no” on all Senate bills in solidarity with Trump.
But Trump is also drawing a connection to the midterm elections, creating the distinct possibility that if Republicans lose this fall, the president and his base will lay the outcome at Thune’s feet.
In his Monday speech, Trump warned of “big trouble” if the bill dies in the Senate and made that case directly to Senate Republicans in November, when he resumed his yearslong crusade against the filibuster.
At the time, he argued the midterm elections would be “rightfully brutal” and that Democrats were “far more likely” to win without the legislation.
Trump’s comments come …
What's the endgame here?
President Donald Trump is waging a relentless campaign to pass a national voter ID law that has the MAGA base primed to blame Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) if Republicans lose the midterm elections in November.
Thune has taken weeks of slings and arrows from the Right over his reluctance to weaken the Senate filibuster, a 60-vote threshold that is keeping the SAVE America Act from becoming law. It began as a social media outrage, then gained traction with pundits claiming Republicans were headed toward an electoral wipeout if the Senate did not act.
Trump sowed the seeds for that narrative last fall, when he urged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster to pass new election laws. But he’s more recently mounted a full-court press, refusing to take no for an answer after Thune told him the GOP votes aren’t there for that outcome.
The president nudged Thune at his State of the Union address in February as he repeated his unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud.
“We have to stop it, John,” Trump said from the lectern of the House floor.
Over the last week, his lobbying has gotten even more intense, with Trump announcing he won’t sign any bill, except for Department of Homeland Security funding, into law until the Senate sends the legislation to his desk. The SAVE America Act passed the House in February with unanimous Republican support.
“We’re going to push them to get it done, because I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID and these things. I don’t think the people in this country will stand for it,” Trump told House Republicans last Monday, calling it his “No. 1 priority” at an annual policy conference in Florida.
For now, the impasse is generating days of unwanted attention for Thune as Trump needles him to be a “leader” and eggs on House conservatives who are vowing to vote “no” on all Senate bills in solidarity with Trump.
But Trump is also drawing a connection to the midterm elections, creating the distinct possibility that if Republicans lose this fall, the president and his base will lay the outcome at Thune’s feet.
In his Monday speech, Trump warned of “big trouble” if the bill dies in the Senate and made that case directly to Senate Republicans in November, when he resumed his yearslong crusade against the filibuster.
At the time, he argued the midterm elections would be “rightfully brutal” and that Democrats were “far more likely” to win without the legislation.
Trump’s comments come …
Thune becomes MAGA’s midterm ‘fall guy’ with voting bill crusade
What's the endgame here?
President Donald Trump is waging a relentless campaign to pass a national voter ID law that has the MAGA base primed to blame Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) if Republicans lose the midterm elections in November.
Thune has taken weeks of slings and arrows from the Right over his reluctance to weaken the Senate filibuster, a 60-vote threshold that is keeping the SAVE America Act from becoming law. It began as a social media outrage, then gained traction with pundits claiming Republicans were headed toward an electoral wipeout if the Senate did not act.
Trump sowed the seeds for that narrative last fall, when he urged Senate Republicans to end the filibuster to pass new election laws. But he’s more recently mounted a full-court press, refusing to take no for an answer after Thune told him the GOP votes aren’t there for that outcome.
The president nudged Thune at his State of the Union address in February as he repeated his unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud.
“We have to stop it, John,” Trump said from the lectern of the House floor.
Over the last week, his lobbying has gotten even more intense, with Trump announcing he won’t sign any bill, except for Department of Homeland Security funding, into law until the Senate sends the legislation to his desk. The SAVE America Act passed the House in February with unanimous Republican support.
“We’re going to push them to get it done, because I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID and these things. I don’t think the people in this country will stand for it,” Trump told House Republicans last Monday, calling it his “No. 1 priority” at an annual policy conference in Florida.
For now, the impasse is generating days of unwanted attention for Thune as Trump needles him to be a “leader” and eggs on House conservatives who are vowing to vote “no” on all Senate bills in solidarity with Trump.
But Trump is also drawing a connection to the midterm elections, creating the distinct possibility that if Republicans lose this fall, the president and his base will lay the outcome at Thune’s feet.
In his Monday speech, Trump warned of “big trouble” if the bill dies in the Senate and made that case directly to Senate Republicans in November, when he resumed his yearslong crusade against the filibuster.
At the time, he argued the midterm elections would be “rightfully brutal” and that Democrats were “far more likely” to win without the legislation.
Trump’s comments come …
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