Trump sours on Republican leader over Senate math

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) holds his weekly press conference following the Republican caucus policy luncheon at Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 13, 2025.REUTERS/Nathan Howard

A fight has been brewing in the GOP. At the center of it are Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, with the former pushing Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act at any cost — including nuking the filibuster — and the latter trying to impress upon the president that they simply don’t have the votes to do it.

When asked if the matter is straining on their relationship, Thune laughed.

“It’s just another normal week, right?” He said. “Some days are better than others.”

The conflict is driven by two factors.

First is Trump’s urgency to pass the SAVE America Act, an election reform bill that critics say is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise opposition voters and broadly manipulate election processes to favor Republicans. Trump has urged the bills passing before the midterms, and while it has passed in the House, it doesn’t have the 60 votes necessary to avoid a legislative filibuster in the Senate, dooming it to fail.

This brings us to the key sticking point between Trump and Thune. Trump wants Senate Republicans to nuke the legislative filibuster by forcing a “talking filibuster,” which would mean that Democrats’ only hope of delaying the vote would be to physically hold the floor for as long as possible while speaking. This would allow the bill to pass by a simple majority as soon as the speaker relented.

But “the votes aren’t there to nuke the filibuster,” Thune has argued in recent days. “It’s just a reality.”

Those votes don’t exist because many in the GOP believe this approach is “risky” as it could allow Democrats to turn the tables in the future and lead to endless legislative gridlock.

Thune has been trying to communicate this to Trump, but the president has kept up his pressure on Senate Republicans, prompting influencers in the MAGA orbit to join the fight. Elon Musk, for example, has accused Thune of impeding Trump’s agenda. As a result, some have begun calling for Thune’s removal as majority leader.

But as Republican Senator James Lankford pointed out, the situation is more complicated than any one vote.

“This is a math issue,” he said.

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