By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senate Republican leader John Thune faces the test of his career this year as he tries to steer Donald Trump’s agenda through a narrowly divided Congress while protecting his own chamber’s authority over Cabinet picks and spending.
A 20-year Senate veteran, Thune became Senate majority leader on Friday when his party’s new 53-47 majority was sworn in. He has a reputation for being an affable negotiator skilled at finding common ground between opposing factions.
Thune, a 63-year-old South Dakotan, will have to maintain a positive relationship with a sometimes petulant and unpredictable Trump, who once sought his ouster and who has displayed little interest in the Senate’s role as a check on executive power.
An early test will be overseeing the confirmation of a series of norm-shattering Cabinet nominees, while delivering on Trump’s agenda of tax cuts, border security and energy deregulation, and averting a potential U.S. default on its more than $36 trillion in debt sometime this year.
“He’s entering the majority leader position during one of the most contentious and consequential years the Senate has had in a generation,” said Brian Riedl, a former Senate aide who is now a senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute. “It’s really going to be a trial by fire.”
Confirmation hearings begin soon for controversial Trump Cabinet picks including Pete Hegseth for defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary and Kash Patel as FBI director.
Members of Thune’s conference have expressed quiet concern about all four, whose resumes are unlike those of prior candidates for the powerful jobs. Since one Trump pick, former congressman Matt Gaetz, dropped out of the running for attorney general.
“REPUBLICANS, BE SMART AND TOUGH!!!” Trump said on social media on Tuesday, warning that Senate Democrats would try to delay the confirmation process.
Thune has met with the four more controversial candidates, but has avoided weighing in on their qualifications, saying simply that each candidate will have to answer questions at a public hearing and then face a Senate confirmation vote. Some Trump supporters say that stance is not firm enough for their tastes.
“The Senate majority leader’s job is to ensure that qualified cabinet nominees of his president’s party win confirmation,” said Mike Davis, a former Senate Republican aide who is founder and president of the Article III Project.
Davis said his Trump-aligned advocacy group has already directed tens of thousands of people to call and email wavering Senate Republicans and “light them up” on social media.
“If those qualified nominees fail, that is John Thune’s failure,” Davis said.
Thune expressed a readiness to give Trump’s picks “wide latitude and wide deference” in a recent Fox News interview, adding: “We have a job to do, advice and consent, and we will do it and make sure that there’s a process that’s fair.”
Thune has survived one pressure campaign by members of Trump’s “Make American Great Again,” or MAGA, movement, who had wanted Senator Rick Scott as the chamber’s leader instead.
SENATE’S POWER AND TRADITIONS
Thune, whose current six-year term extends through 2028, has strong support in South Dakota, which insulated him against Trump’s hopes of putting up a primary challenger against him in 2022 after he criticized Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
He has said he plans to protect the Senate’s power and traditions, which include both the authority to confirm or deny a president’s Cabinet picks and its “filibuster” rule, which requires 60 of the 100 senators to agree on most legislation — meaning that he may at times need Democratic support.
“One of my priorities as leader will be to ensure that the Senate stays the Senate. That means preserving the legislative filibuster, the Senate rule that today has perhaps the greatest impact on preserving the founders’ vision of the United States Senate,” Thune said in a Friday floor speech.
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine, said he has “respect” for the filibuster and “a very good relationship” with Thune.
Thune’s allies say the former high school basketball star has the acumen to outmaneuver lawmakers unwilling to toe the party line on critical votes.
Trump, and his supporters, may expect no less — and seem poised to push back if some Senate Republicans try to buck his priorities. Trump has already suggested he would turn to recess appointments to install nominees if the Senate doesn’t support his picks.
Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said Thune may face pressure from hardline conservatives with no interest in the Senate’s traditions: “There’s an awful lot of folks going into the new administration who just think of Congress as a pain in the butt.”
(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
