Thune and Trump’s uneasy alliance puts our senator in the spotlight
What is the current relationship between Donald Trump and John Thune?
The two men, leaders of the executive and legislative branches of government, respectively, come from very different backgrounds and have different perspectives. Our senior senator, who is currently the Senate majority leader like Tom Daschle, the man he ousted 22 years ago, is a traditional conservative Republican from the small town of Murdo. Trump eschews conservative and constitutional values and leans toward authoritarianism and even fascism.
Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, John Thune and our other senator, Mike Rounds rushed to South Carolina to immediately endorse the candidacy of their Senate colleague Tim Scott. If you are looking for clues as to how Thune really feels about Donald Trump, that gesture is quite instructive.
Rather than supporting a political comeback for the New York billionaire who inspired his supporters to insurrection after he lost the 2020 election, Thune quickly threw his support to a Black man from South Carolina who had pulled himself out of poverty and sold real estate before becoming a politician.
In retrospect, Trump's main competitor for the Republican nomination in 2024 was a different South Carolinian, Nikki Haley, but Thune felt more comfortable supporting Scott, whose candidacy quickly fizzled and who subsequently jumped on Trump’s bandwagon.
Thune has also been publicly supportive of Trump since the brief foray with Tim Scott, but his relationship with our mercurial president remains somewhat fraught. The Wall Street Journal has recently called attention to Trump’s deep frustrations with his Senate leader, much of which relates to the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America Act. This legislation, which would disenfranchise voters who could not produce adequate proof of citizenship, appears to be Trump’s top legislative priority.
Thune has repeatedly said that he cannot muster the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster of this highly partisan legislation. He is simply giving the president an honest assessment that the votes aren’t there, since Republicans only hold 53 of 100 U.S. Senate seats. Trump wants the Senate to eliminate the filibuster, which senators of both parties are reluctant to do. It clearly bothers him that Thune is not quite the sycophant that House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has proven to be.
On Wednesday, June 23, Trump went over to the Capitol and actually had lunch with Thune. The pressure on Republican senators has escalated, as the president refuses to sign bipartisan legislation that could provide more affordable housing until the SAVE America Act reaches his desk. Ultimately, the housing legislation could become law without Trump’s signature, if he does not actually veto it.
But Republican senators are feeling the increased pressure. Thune did deliver for Trump this week, as the Senate rescinded its support for a war powers resolution aimed at prohibiting Trump’s current unauthorised war against Iran. Apparently Thune had brought pressure on two of his Republican colleagues — Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rand Paul of Kentucky — to change their votes.
Since Cassidy was soundly rejected in the recent Republican primary in his state, a punishment for his vote to convict Trump in the impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection, he is presumably free to vote his conscience. Paul is a libertarian conservative gadfly who usually does not respond to political pressure. In that sense, their change of heart is remarkable.
While Thune has not delivered the bill which would require proof of citizenship (a birth certificate or passport) to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a vote, he is still willing to carry water for his party’s leader, a man whose return to power was not his fondest wish.
Jay Davis of Rapid City is a retired lawyer and a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard.
Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons
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