President Donald Trump remained noncommittal on whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune should remain majority leader in an interview released Friday.
Trump repeatedly demanded that Thune terminate the filibuster, fire the Senate parliamentarian and pass the Safeguard America Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. He told Punchbowl News‘ “Fly Out Day” podcast that he did not want to discuss whether Thune should remain majority leader, though acknowledged they had several disagreements.
“I don’t want to get into that, necessarily,” Trump said. “I get along with him, it’s unfortunate that he doesn’t have the votes.”
When pressed on his relationship with Thune, Trump maintained he gets along with him but has strong disagreements with him.
“I believe strongly in terminating the filibuster and, by the way, getting the SAVE America Act approved immediately and about 400 other things in every hour of everyday, boom boom boom, you get whatever you want … We would get, in the next two-and-a-half years, we would get things that we never would have dreamt of,” Trump said. “We would be in office for the next 100 years. And I’ll tell you what, if [the Democrats] get in, I may be the last Republican president. If the Senate doesn’t get smart, I may be the last Republican president. That’s a big statement.”
Trump stated that House Speaker Mike Johnson should remain speaker and praised his record.
“He’s great. We work together great. He’s a fantastic person,” Trump said.
Thune’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Thune argued terminating the filibuster would allow Democrats to pass their agenda when they are in power, such as packing the Supreme Court and allowing abortion up to birth. He rejected Trump’s calls to fire Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough after she stripped out his $1 billion request to enhance Secret Service security measures during the construction of the White House ballroom from a second reconciliation package.
There were also concerns she would strip the SAVE America Act from appropriations bills. The majority leader also repeatedly argued the chamber lacked the votes to pass the SAVE America Act.
In late July, Trump and several Senate Republicans called on leadership to cancel recess to pass the SAVE America Act. Thune argued canceling recess would not get the election integrity bill passed.
Some House Republicans called on Thune to step aside as majority leader, including Reps. John Rose and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
“We should call on Thune to step aside,” Rose told Newsmax in March.
Mace called Thune a “thorn in the side” for the Republican Party. She made the comments after the Senate passed a deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) while withholding money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol.
“We’re not the problem. It’s the left that’s a problem,” Mace said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And now Senator Thune has become a problem and a thorn in the side of the Republican Party. And it’s become a national problem.”
Trump attended a heated lunch with Senate Republicans in June, where he raged at the upper chamber for not passing the SAVE America Act and for passing a concurrent war powers resolution.
(DCNF)