It was one year ago that Senate Majority Leader John Thune officially became GOP leader, succeeding Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with big promises amid widespread skepticism about the South Dakotan’s ability to work successfully with President Donald Trump.
Thune has struggled at times to deal with a president whose personal style is polar-opposite from his own, and whose views on policies like tariffs are anathema. Yet Thune has emerged as one of Trump’s more reliable — and effective — assets, one whose power is derived less from Trump and more from his own conference.
In 2025, Republicans passed a massive tax-and-spending-cut bill, confirmed Trump’s Cabinet nominees at a historic pace and changed the chamber’s rules to fast-track nominees caught up in an uncompromising Democratic blockade, among other initiatives.
At the same time, Thune has resisted Trump’s unrelenting pressure to gut long-standing Senate traditions that give the minority party critical power levers: The filibuster and the “blue-slip” for judicial nominees.
“I feel like I’ve gotten to a point where [Trump] respects enough how I view the world and look at these issues. And he has an understanding that I want what’s in his and our best interest,” Thune told us in an extensive interview marking his one-year anniversary as Republican leader. “Let’s talk about the things we can do and not the things we can’t.”
Yet Thune has also learned how difficult it is to safeguard Senate prerogatives that require Democratic buy-in while simultaneously executing Trump’s agenda. Straddling both camps and keeping Trump at arm’s length hasn’t always kept things from going off the rails, fueling criticisms of his leadership style as too timid.
One year in. Thune’s consensus-building doctrine when dealing with his sometimes-unruly conference has helped him notch wins, but has also held him back at other times.
And Democrats, under constant pressure from the left to raise hell, say they don’t trust Thune like they used to, citing his unwillingness to push back against Trump when he tramples on Congress’ power of the purse. Thune says he takes any concerns to Trump privately and has learned to “not litigate these things in public.”
Despite those headwinds, Thune wants to get bipartisan deals this year on housing, market structure and permitting — and he’s keeping the door open to an Obamacare compromise.
Thune acknowledged how difficult this will be, especially in an election year.
“The environment we’re in, the polarization, has made it virtually impossible to do even the simplest things,” Thune said, largely blaming Democrats. “And I acknowledge at the get-go that these are not normal times.”
But Trump, too, often stands in the way of what Thune wants to accomplish. For example, Trump’s funding revocations targeting Colorado — intended to pressure the governor to release a convicted election-tamperer — are animating Democrats’ refusal to green-light a funding package Thune really wants to pass.
The 2020 election has long been a sore spot for Trump and Thune. When asked about Trump’s Colorado rampage, Thune said his personal feelings don’t matter.
“The president has his way of doing things,” Thune added. “We’ve got to figure out how to work around that.”
Thune suggested he may abandon efforts to pass that five-bill FY2026 minibus funding package, citing positive momentum on bicameral talks during the holiday break. This could make Senate action on the minibus unnecessary. Short-term or long-term CRs could be in store for some of the thornier funding bills, Thune added.
News. Some more newsy bits from our interview:
— Thune said any bipartisan health care deal would likely need to come together within the next month, but didn’t say whether it could be tied to the Jan. 30 funding deadline. Bipartisan discussions continued over the break, as we scooped, and Thune supports these negotiations. Thune said he’s “not averse” to a compromise that includes a pared-back extension of the Obamacare subsidies.
— Thune plans to hit the road in 2026 to sell the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, lamenting that Democrats have gotten in front of them on messaging.
“The Democrats have been really good out there and kind of in a vacuum,” Thune said. “We’ve got a story to tell that hasn’t been fully told. And it’s up to us to tell it. And we will.”
