Senate Majority Leader John Thune is already playing his biggest card — President Donald Trump.
With the fate of Trump’s legislative agenda at stake — especially extending the 2017 tax cuts — Thune is using the president to help push the GOP reconciliation package through the Senate in ways that his predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wouldn’t have.
Thune is enlisting Trump to help wrangle the various factions in the Senate GOP Conference, knowing that at the end of the day, the president will have to help close any deal to get 51 votes. And the end product isn’t predetermined by the Republican leadership.
Unlike McConnell, Thune is making Trump a day-to-day part of the process and letting his GOP senators hash it out to find consensus.
Thune and Trump huddled at the White House on Monday. And Thune is a big reason why Trump began calling individual GOP senators soon afterward to discuss their concerns over the House-passed reconciliation package.
There’s another benefit for Thune here: By not allowing any space between himself and Trump, Thune can’t be blamed if things go south. This is always a good idea with Trump. All credit goes to Trump if things go well, of course, while blame goes somewhere else if they don’t.
This Trump-Thune dynamic, and the way it’s playing out during reconciliation, is a big change for the Senate GOP Conference.
Case in point: There are two critical reconciliation meetings happening today. First, Senate Republicans are holding an afternoon meeting to talk about plans for the “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” Then Senate Finance Committee Republicans are heading to the White House for a 4 p.m. meeting with Trump.
The Finance panel, chaired by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), faces some of the most difficult questions in reconciliation including what, if anything, to change from the House tax-cut language. Trump has some key campaign promises in there, including no tax on tips or overtime pay, as well as tax cuts for seniors.
Senate Republicans also aren’t sure how to handle SALT, an existential political matter for several blue-state House Republicans. Thune said the SALT deal needs to change.
Plus, Finance has jurisdiction over Medicaid cuts, an enormous concern for moderate Republicans and senators with large numbers of Medicaid recipients in their home states.
Thune’s approach during this high-stakes phase of the reconciliation process is a sharp departure from what most Senate Republicans have grown accustomed to.
McConnell’s top-down approach got old with many Republicans after 18 years in power, fueling promises for change during last year’s Republican leadership race. Thune ran for GOP leader by promising to empower the conference to work its own will, rather than dictate the outcome of each debate.
The South Dakota Republican did the same with Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Thune didn’t promise a particular outcome to Trump, instead letting the president exert his sway with GOP senators when needed.
There’s one more Trump-centric issue for Thune – what to do about Elon Musk. Musk panned the GOP reconciliation bill on Tuesday, which was immediately seized on by some Republican critics of the measure. Trump is the only one who can counter that, as Thune knows.
The WH factor. The Finance Committee’s session with Trump today is meant to focus on plans for the tax portion of Republicans’ bill. But it’s Trump, so this conversation can go anywhere, of course.
The panel’s roster doesn’t only include Thune and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso. It also has Republicans such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who insists he can’t vote for the House-passed reconciliation bill because it doesn’t cut enough federal spending. Johnson said he’ll continue to drill down on those concerns at today’s Trump meeting:
“I’ll be making the same case I’ve been making. I’ll take [Trump] my new chart, although I know I’ve already texted that to him… I’d like his response to it.”
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), another Finance member who’s pushing to hit $2 trillion in spending cuts, said tax writers need Trump to focus the debate.
“We need his leadership to say of all the things we could do, here’s my priorities,” Marshall said.
Finance’s ranks also include Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who’s in-cycle and is raising concerns about the House bill’s repeal of IRA clean-energy tax credits. Tillis said he expects a big-picture discussion at the White House and more guidance on “where the president feels comfortable with us finding additional savings.”
And there’s lots of interest from Senate Republicans in making a few more tax cuts permanent from the House bill.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) spoke up during Tuesday’s lunch meeting to push for making key business tax breaks — the full research and development deduction, bonus depreciation and interest expensing — permanent. The House bill restores them for 2025 through 2029.
“That is a red line for me,” Daines told us. “If that’s not in the bill, I’ll vote against it.”
Daines has been vocal about his demands for making pieces of the 2017 tax bill permanent this time around.
Ad news: The American Action Network is running a $4.2 million ad buy across 28 congressional districts touting the tax benefits of the GOP reconciliation bill.
Here’s an example of an AAN ad running to boost Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.). The ad thanks Ciscomani for “putting more money back in your pocket,” singling out the elimination of taxes on overtime and tips, in addition to cutting taxes for seniors.
AAN — the Congressional Leadership Fund’s sister organization — is also running attack ads against vulnerable House Democrats. Here’s a spot targeting Rep. Derek Tran (D-Calif.) that criticizes the incumbent for “supporting the largest tax hike in American history.”
