We sat down with Senate Majority Leader John Thune as the Senate was about to pass President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” There were some surprises along the way that delayed final passage, but Thune notched by far his biggest legislative victory as Senate GOP leader on Tuesday night
You can read more from our interview here, focusing on how Thune got the bill over the finish line and how he dealt with one GOP senator’s vocal warnings about the political downsides of the bill. But there was a lot from our sit-down that we couldn’t get into in Tuesday’s special edition newsletter — so let’s dive in.
The North Carolina field. Thune wasn’t necessarily surprised that Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) decided to forgo a reelection bid in 2026. But Thune and many others were surprised that Tillis chose Sunday to announce it — in the middle of the reconciliation floor process and just hours after Trump essentially said he’d back a primary challenger to the veteran GOP senator.
Thune noted that he was just with Tillis last weekend to raise money in Chicago. Even then, Thune sensed that the North Carolina Republican “just hasn’t been all-in.” Indeed, that was an open secret in Washington. Thune said Trump’s social media posts on Tillis weren’t “the only thing,” but rather “part of a sequence of events.”
Tillis texted Thune on Saturday night indicating he was preparing to move forward with an announcement.
“I said, ‘Don’t do anything rash, in the heat of the moment’… But he decided to move,” Thune told us.
Thune sounded confident about Republicans’ ability to hold Tillis’ seat, noting that Trump has won North Carolina three times. He also said Republicans have “a really good bench down there.” Check out our story from Monday on the race to succeed Tillis.
“We’ll have good candidates and hopefully resources won’t be a problem. I’m sure the Democrats will target it,” Thune said. “We just need to get an electable candidate — somebody who can win not only the primary but the general.”
Tillis’ message was similar. While he didn’t commit to endorsing a successor, Tillis said he suspects Trump will play kingmaker but hopes the president chooses someone who can win.
Reconciliation 2.0? Speaker Mike Johnson has said he’s interested in taking another whack at budget reconciliation — something Congress can do at the end of the fiscal year. Johnson told Senate Republicans behind closed doors last week that he wants to tackle entitlement reform.
In the Senate, Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also expressed interest in this. But Thune was noncommittal. His message was simply, “We’ll see.”
The massive bill the Senate just passed “has a lot of the agenda in it,” Thune said, “but there are some other things that people would like to do that aren’t included in this. I’m certainly open to it.”
Thune also said it’ll depend on “how intensely” the White House and the president are interested.
