This morning, we’re bringing you the latest Leader Look, a signature Punchbowl News tradition zooming in on the Big Four congressional leaders. We’re starting with the Senate. On Friday, we’ll take a look at the House.
As Senate Republicans prepare to take up the GOP’s massive reconciliation bill, the next four weeks will be hugely consequential for both of the chamber’s leaders.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune. The South Dakota Republican is getting ready for the most important stretch of his nascent tenure as Senate majority leader.
Senate Republicans want to get President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” across the finish line before the July 4 recess. The pressure is on Thune and other Senate GOP leaders to make that happen.
Senate Republicans have little appetite to reinvent the wheel here. They’re not expected to make dramatic, foundational changes to the House-passed bill. But Thune will need to juggle demands from several different factions of his conference that want revisions to the proposal. That’s in addition to the “Byrd Bath” for the package to ensure compliance with Senate reconciliation rules.
Speaker Mike Johnson, as he told us last week, is pushing the Senate to “fine-tune this product as little as possible.”
Thune will lean on his experience as GOP whip, as well as his prominent role during the 2017 tax bill debate, to get this done. Yet the stakes are a lot higher this time. Not only does Thune have the weight of passing Trump’s signature legislative achievement resting on his shoulders, but he’s also staring down a debt-limit deadline.
Meanwhile, Republicans are agitating for floor action on a sweeping Russia sanctions package intended to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin. Traditionally, legislation of this magnitude with 81 co-sponsors would force a president’s hand with a veto-proof majority. But Thune has said he’s waiting for a signal from the White House.
Let’s also take stock of recent developments. Senate Republicans circumvented a ruling from the Government Accountability Office to block California’s Clean Air Act waivers, essentially preventing the state from setting stricter environmental standards.
Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso spent weeks working to convince GOP holdouts amid an onslaught from Democrats who accused Republicans of going “nuclear” and weakening the filibuster. Some Republicans were concerned about voting to overrule the Senate parliamentarian, who was deferring to GAO.
But Thune got Republicans in line and executed a procedural maneuver on the floor whereby they wouldn’t be forced to vote directly on overruling the parliamentarian.
This was a risky play. It could be seen as expanding the scope of the Congressional Review Act — applying the CRA’s simple-majority threshold to something that might otherwise be subject to a filibuster.
On the political side, Thune had a big setback when Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp said no to a Senate run. Kemp was by far the strongest candidate in a head-to-head with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). Republicans now have to contend with a potentially messy primary.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer is still dealing with the lingering fallout from his handling of March’s government-funding fight.
Several Democratic Senate candidates are refusing to say whether they’d back Schumer for leader if they win in 2026. This includes Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.). Mallory McMorrow, who’s also running in Michigan, has said flat-out she won’t back Schumer.
We don’t want to overplay this. Leadership elections are a long time from now. What a candidate says on the trail may be a lot different from how they vote in a secret-ballot leadership election. Ask Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) about that. But clearly there’s still a lot of anger at Schumer over his handling of the CR battle.
The flip side is that Democrats are feeling better about 2026. Kemp’s decision not to run in Georgia helps Ossoff, Schumer’s most vulnerable incumbent.
Democrats are also on the offensive over the GOP reconciliation bill. They see it as an electoral gift, pointing to Republicans slashing popular programs like Medicaid paired with an extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Schumer plans to hammer that message over the next month and throughout the cycle.
If the GOP reconciliations bill passes, however, Schumer loses another leverage point — the debt limit. That leaves his only real leverage this year as the FY2026 spending bills. Until then, Schumer has some big challenges, including navigating a divided Democratic Caucus on the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin reform bill.
FY2026 budget news: We’re hearing the White House will send supplementary technical documents on Trump’s FY2026 budget plan to the Hill this week. There’s no word yet on how extensive these materials will be.
The real news here is that the 46-page “skinny” budget sent to Capitol Hill in early May remains what the White House and House Republicans will rely on as a basis for FY2026 spending bills. That plan called for $163 billion in cuts to non-defense spending while also boosting the Pentagon budget.
There’s no way this will fly with Democrats or moderate Republicans. Spending bills written to that target won’t pass the Senate, while House GOP leaders and the White House may balk at anything else. This will be a hot summer over funding federal agencies.
