WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader John R. Thune (R-S.D.) has been jamming up President Donald J. Trump since Trump's first term, though at the time he was only a committee chairman and a rising member of former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) leadership team.
Today, Thune leads Senate Republicans—and, critics argue, often leads them into direct opposition to Trump's programs and agenda.
Now comes word that Thune is not confident Senate Republicans can confirm Acting Attorney General Todd W. Blanche.
Speaking to Capitol Hill reporters on June 4, Thune said:
“Hard to say. Most of our members are pretty deferential to who the president wants in some of these key positions, and he’s obviously serving in the role already and clearly has experience in it, so that serves him well, but this is an environment where nothing’s a safe or a sure bet these days.”
Obviously, Thune is not without influence or resources, given the Senate's 53-47 Republican majority and Vice President James D. “J.D.” Vance available to break a tie vote.
In fact, when the Senate took its de facto recess during Memorial Day week, Thune maintained that the chamber was technically still in a pro forma session. This procedural maneuver once again denied the president the opportunity to make recess appointments.
Recess appointments carry the legal weight of Senate-confirmed positions until the end of the current Senate session. President Ronald Reagan, for example, made 240 recess appointments during his presidency, providing a significant boost to his administration and reinforcing the governing philosophy that "personnel is policy."
That was before senators began routinely using pro forma sessions. Critics argue that Senate Republicans frequently undermined Reagan's agenda, to the point where Reagan often found more reliable support from conservative House Democrats than from members of his own party in the Senate.
Trump has made no recess appointments during either his first or second terms, a situation critics attribute to Senate leaders such as Thune and his predecessor, McConnell, who have sought to limit the president's ability to implement a "personnel is policy" strategy.
A look at Thune's leadership team illustrates his own personnel choices. His chief deputy is Sen. Michael D. Crapo (R-Idaho), who called on Trump to withdraw from the presidential race following the release of the 2016 "Access Hollywood" tape and later opposed efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
Other members of the whip team include Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Todd Young (R-Ind.), all of whom have frequently been at odds with Trump and his political movement.
Critics contend this reflects a broader culture within Senate Republican leadership—one that operates independently of, and sometimes in opposition to, Republican voters.
From 1933 to 1969, Republicans held the White House for only one administration: President Dwight D. Eisenhower's. Many historians characterize the Eisenhower years as a caretaker period between Democratic administrations.
The election of Richard M. Nixon in 1968 represented a shift, as Republicans sought to roll back portions of the New Deal and Great Society programs while reducing Washington's influence over the economy and state and local governments.
Yet throughout Nixon's presidency, Senate Republicans frequently resisted conservative initiatives. That tension culminated on Aug. 7, 1974, when former Republican presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) visited Nixon at the White House.
Goldwater reportedly told Nixon that if the House impeached him, he lacked the votes necessary to avoid conviction in the Senate. At the time, Republicans held 42 Senate seats.
According to accounts of the meeting, Goldwater informed Nixon he could count on no more than five Republican votes—and that Goldwater himself would not be among them.
The following day, Nixon resigned.
Today, critics see Thune as carrying forward a longstanding tradition of Senate Republican resistance to Republican presidents, particularly those seeking to reshape the federal government through appointments and executive action.