WASHINGTON, June 17 - President Trump’s recent interventions in the Senate have upended a plan by Senate Republicans to move forward with a critical national security measure this week, highlighting a widening schism between the White House and Republican senators as they approach the November midterm elections.
At the center of the dispute is the president’s effort to shield his preferred loyalist, Bill Pulte, in the role of acting U.S. spy chief. That effort prompted the Senate Intelligence Committee to postpone a confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton, the president’s permanent nominee to lead national security operations, a nomination Republicans had hoped to expedite.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis sharply criticized the president’s intervention, saying, "He made a colossal mistake. It’s undermining our ability to produce the very results he wants." The comment underlines growing frustration among some Senate Republicans that the president’s tactics are obstructing legislative outcomes they had intended to secure.
The episode is one in a string of moves by the president that have derailed Republican plans on Capitol Hill. Most recently, Trump announced a $1.8 billion "antiweaponization" fund intended to compensate political allies who say they were targeted by federal authorities. That announcement stalled a separate $70 billion bill intended to fund an immigration crackdown.
Other actions that have troubled Senate Republicans include Mr. Trump’s efforts to unseat sitting GOP incumbents, a demand for $1 billion tied to renovations of the White House ballroom, and his push for passage of the SAVE America Act - a voter ID bill that would impose sweeping voting restrictions. The president has also publicly called on the Senate to end the 60-vote filibuster rule and to fire the chamber’s parliamentarian.
Saying "no" to the president
Faced with those demands, Senate Republicans have increasingly pushed back, refusing to accede to some of the president’s more ambitious requests. Leadership, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has resisted attempts to attach the SAVE America Act to other bills. After an early effort to fold the voting package into the surveillance measure, Thune told reporters, "I think the president wants to add SAVE America to pretty much everything. But that, obviously, is not realistic to get the FISA bill done. And we want to get the FISA bill done."
The refusal to bundle the SAVE America Act with surveillance legislation reflects broader Senate calculations: the voting restrictions face vigorous opposition from Democrats and would effectively require eliminating the filibuster to pass. That political reality has led some Republicans to draw a line against the president’s demands.
Deeper divisions ahead of midterms
The standoff has intensified tensions between the president and Senate Republicans with less than five months remaining before the midterm contests. Senator John Cornyn, who recently lost his primary re-election bid to a Trump-backed challenger, warned of a rocky stretch ahead, saying, "I think we’re in for a bumpy seven months or so."
Not all Republicans see the president’s behavior as disruptive. Senator Rick Scott, a hardliner from Florida, defended several of the president’s priorities and framed them in the broader context of public demand for election security and limits on surveillance. "He’s doing things that people want," Scott said, arguing that Americans across the political spectrum seek measures such as voter ID and greater protections against surveillance.
Outrage over Pulte
Mr. Trump’s selection of Bill Pulte as the acting intelligence chief has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans due to Pulte’s lack of national security background. That lack of experience triggered a Democratic boycott of legislation to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), driven by concerns that Pulte might use the office to target individuals the president views as political adversaries.
The president doubled down on his demand that Senate Republicans attach the FISA extension to his voter ID bill, the SAVE America Act. Democrats have strongly opposed that package of voting restrictions, and lawmakers and independent analysts have warned that the president’s approach reflects a longstanding tendency to treat Congress as subordinate to his directives rather than as an equal partner in lawmaking.
Molly Nixon, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the president’s posture toward Congress has become more pronounced as the legislative body grapples with multiple competitive races. "I think he really doesn’t see Congress as an entity for making deals with. He sees it as something subservient," she said.
Trust and transactional politics
A number of Republican senators say the president’s removal of incumbents has eroded trust within the party. Cornyn said that those actions "destroyed what remained of any kind of trust," and that the dynamic has transformed many relationships in the Senate into more transactional interactions rather than those founded on trust.
The political strain comes as the president’s approval ratings have declined. Less than a year and a half into his second term as president, his approval has slipped from 47% around the time of his inauguration to 36% this month, slightly above an all-time low of 33% recorded during his first term. His standing within the Republican Party has also fallen substantially over the same period, according to recent polling.
Thune’s resistance to some of the president’s requests - notably his refusal to accede to demands to fire the parliamentarian or to eliminate the filibuster - has won him respect across party lines. Democratic Senator Peter Welch praised Thune’s stance, saying, "I happen to have a lot of respect for Senator Thune. Trump wants him to fire the parliamentarian. He wants him to get rid of the filibuster. And I see Thune as doing his best to maintain the independent integrity of the Senate."
When asked about his relationship with the president, Thune replied tersely to reporters, "It’s fine. The president has his own mind and makes his own decisions," and then walked away, underscoring the uneasy but functioning relationship between Senate leaders and the White House.
The recent sequence of events - the push to protect an acting intelligence chief, the delay of a confirmation hearing for the president’s permanent nominee, and the insistence on linking a sweeping voter-ID package to a surveillance bill - has crystallized a new phase of contention between the White House and Senate Republicans. With multiple competitive races looming and several legislative priorities in play, the Republican conference faces the practical challenge of navigating internal divisions while attempting to advance an agenda that satisfies both the president and a skeptical Senate majority.