Tensions are rising with Trump and Republican senators ahead of the midterm elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — The relationship between President Donald Trump and Senate Republicans approached a breaking point this week when he upended their efforts to quickly confirm one of his nominees and said he would not sign a renewal of a key surveillance law unless they agreed to new terms.

Trump’s overnight social media post on Wednesday delaying Jay Clayton’s nomination to become director of national intelligence, just hours before a US attorney general confirmation hearing, further strained relations between the Senate and the White House that had deteriorated for weeks. Later that day, some Republican senators, who had been reluctant to directly challenge the president on the Iran war, were vocal in their criticism of his agreement to end the war.

“This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Los Angeles, said in a post on X.

The open tensions represent an almost complete reversal from a year ago when Senate Republicans worked closely with Trump in a complex effort to advance his massive spending and tax cuts.

At the time, criticism of the president was virtually nonexistent among Republicans on Capitol Hill, and they were planning to highlight the passage of this bill in the midterm elections. But with the November election looming and Republicans trying to defend their majority, Trump is instead pestering Congress with his demands and rollbacks, prompting several Republican senators to publicly disparage his actions for the first time.

“I think someone is not engaging the president on the complexities of what he did here,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said Wednesday after delaying Clayton’s confirmation. “I mean, oh my God.”

The slow disintegration of what once seemed like a tight alliance between the executive and legislative branches in Republican-led Washington extends to their policy priorities.

Trump appears to have lost interest in most of the GOP agenda and has become almost singularly focused on his election legislation requiring proof of citizenship, which has almost no chance of passing. At the same time, he asked members of Congress to fund parts of the White House ballroom project, allow an interim intelligence director whom none of them liked, and cede their powers in the Iran war.

The growing dispute has brought much of the Senate’s business to a halt and put Republicans up for re-election this year on the defensive. It also put pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has been frank with Trump about what he can and cannot do in the Senate.

Trump presses Thune on voting bill

Trump has relentlessly pressured Thune to eliminate the filibuster and pass tough citizenship proof legislation, called the Save America Act. Thune, a member of the Republican Party, has told Trump publicly and privately that the votes are not there for either step. However, Trump kept up the pressure.

In a post on social media on Thursday, Trump said he would be “the last Republican president” if the voting bill was not passed.

“Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Republican Senate must not allow this massacre to happen,” Trump said. “They will be on the wrong side of history, and so will all the Republicans who stood by.”

However, Trump has not yet gone after the beloved Republican leader on a personal basis, as he often did with Thune’s predecessor, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Trump once described McConnell as a “tough, sullen, unsmiling politician.”

Trump and Thune talk frequently, even as Thune sometimes tells the president news he doesn’t want to hear. As Trump pushed for the voting bill, Thune devoted weeks of time to considering it, trying to make clear that the Senate was supportive of him, even if there was a shortage of votes.

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmidt, one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate, said he never heard Trump say anything negative about Thune.

“It’s a difficult position,” Schmidt said of Thune’s role in the Senate. “I think they have a good working relationship.”

One of Thune’s closest allies, Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, said the moderate leader is “the right person at the right time.”

“In the Capitol today, he is the stable force,” Rounds said. “In Washington, D.C., today, he is a stable force.”

There are no signs of rebellion among the Senate GOP

There are no signs of a coup within the Republican Party conference yet, despite Trump’s pressure.

Cassidy, who has become a more frequent critic of Trump since the primary loss to a Trump-backed challenger, said Thune “has handled it better than anyone.”

Criticism of Trump has emerged at times even among his closest allies in the Senate, especially with his proposed $1.776 billion settlement fund for his political allies and his choice for acting intelligence director, Bill Bolt, who has no known intelligence experience.

But the dispute with Trump has also raised some new internal tensions.

Several Republican senators criticized Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who has waged an online campaign to eliminate the filibuster and pass the Save America Act, at a private lunch conference this week for stirring up intra-party discord in an election year.

The number of Trump’s allies has declined

Some Senate Republicans made clear they had no plans to separate themselves from Trump.

While many of his colleagues criticized Trump’s deal with Iran this week, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, strongly defended the agreement on social media.

“Let’s prepare the Nobel Peace Prize!” Moreno posted on X.

But Trump’s allies in the Senate are far fewer than they were when they narrowly passed tax and spending cuts legislation a year ago. That’s partly because he handpicked some of the most loyal Republican votes.

Both Cassidy and Texas Sen. John Cornyn lost in the primaries last month after Trump endorsed their opponents. Tillis announced that he would not run for re-election last year after Trump repeatedly criticized him on social media.

Now all three have become frequent critics.

Shortly after his election loss, Cornyn posted on social media a fable about a frog and a scorpion. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him across the river, according to the story, and then stings the frog in the middle of the river, “annihilating them both.”

“The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung him even though he knew the consequences,” Cornyn’s post read. “Scorpio replies: ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my personality.'”