John Thune and The White House Are Openly Fighting Over the SAVE Act

The battle over the SAVE America Act ratcheted up a few notches Thursday as the White House and Senate Majority Leader John Thune traded barbs over the lack of progress on the voting bill that President Donald Trump considers his top priority.

Trump’s frustrations about the stalled legislation have simmered for months but took a sharp turn Wednesday. At a rally in Georgia, he panned the upper chamber as “a place you send things when you want them to die.”

But it was a back-and-forth between White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Thune that really added gas to the fire. When Leavitt was pressed about the Republican leader, she told reporters that the president’s “patience is running out” — comments that did not sit well with Thune.

“She or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes, right?” the mild-mannered Thune shot back. “So instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats. And if there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone. Let’s get them to ‘yes.’”

The measure not only doesn’t have Democratic support to overcome a filibuster, it does not have the needed votes to weaken the 60-vote threshold in favor of a “talking” filibuster that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has championed. Even if that did happen, the bill has previously failed to win simple majority support.

“We just don’t have the votes, and so there’s nothing that Senator Thune can do to change that. This idea that he can just command members of the Republican Conference to get in line is just a fantasy, so I think it’s unfair,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters.

Thune is left taking the intra-party arrows every time he admits there is little that can be done to move the bill along. Republicans are left frustrated over what they believe are unrealistic expectations by Trump and conservative activists over the bill’s future.

Cornyn blamed people misleading the White House.

“I don’t know who it was that sold the president on this idea that this was attainable, but it’s creating a circular firing squad for Republicans,” Cornyn said. “Here we are, what, 103 days before the midterm elections, and this is not a great place for us to be.”

The bill would require voters to present a photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship for voter registration, and would severely curtail the use of mail-in balloting.

Trump has insisted that as much of the SAVE America Act as possible has to advance before the August recess. The House took a step of its own before it departed for a weekslong recess by green-lighting $10 billion in incentives for states to pass portions of the voting measure.

However, the Senate isn’t in lockstep.

Thune announced this week that he won’t move the House’s budget resolution before the August break. He explained this was a strategy to preserve a third reconciliation bill if one is needed to pass a government spending measure before the Sept. 30 funding deadline. He has also been loathe to allow another vote-a-rama, required under reconciliation rules, before November to keep from exposing vulnerable incumbents to tough votes.

A number of other Republicans also took issue with Leavitt’s characterization of Thune and indicated they believed he was dealing with the math.

“Everybody wants to talk about 60 votes — we don’t have 51 votes,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota) said.

Others believe Thune has few options at his disposal.

“I don’t think it’s a news flash. John’s doing the best he can, but John can’t put a gun to people’s head and make them vote a particular way,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana). “When you’re majority leader, you take a lot of the spears and the arrows. That’s his job.”

“I think John is generally for the [SAVE America Act.] It’s just that we have some people that aren’t,” he continued. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Thom TIllis of North Carolina and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have voted against versions of the voting bill.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida), who has at times been a thorn in Thune’s side and has been a preeminent supporter of the measure, indicated he’s sympathetic to both sides in the spat.

“It’s hard being leader. … I think he’s working hard,” Scott said of Thune. “I’m sure if I was the president of the United States, I’d be frustrated if everything I wanted didn’t get done. So that is probably pretty common.”

Trump has recently attempted to use the voting proposal as a cudgel, further complicating matters for the Republican leader. Last month he said he wouldn’t sign a reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act unless SAVE America was approved as well.

At this point, Trump’s maneuvers have left members exasperated as they readily acknowledge the situation is basically at an impasse.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) said about the bill before criticizing Leavitt’s remarks. “I can’t imagine that she knows what it’s like to be a leader in the Senate with 53 very strong-minded people that have different opinions.”

“If [the president’s] going to be an immovable force, I don’t know why they can’t be an immovable force too,” she said of Republicans opposing the SAVE America Act. “That’s what we’re seeing here — immovable forces coming up against one another.”