The president’s decision to keep one of his own nominees from showing up at a confirmation hearing is his latest clash with his party.
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For the second time in less than a month, the Senate is set to leave Washington on Thursday without accomplishing Republicans’ top goal for the week after President Donald Trump torpedoed it.
The Senate was set to confirm Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence, as soon as Thursday. But Trump blew up those plans by telling Clayton on Wednesday to skip his confirmation hearing.
Trump’s move ensures that Bill Pulte, a favorite of the president whom he named as acting director of national intelligence, will be able to take office Friday, which Clayton’s confirmation could have prevented. But it frustrated Republican senators, who are increasingly finding themselves at odds with Trump less than five months before the midterm elections in which Republicans’ narrow Senate majority is at risk.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) said he would be “frustrated as hell” if he were Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota). Congress is an equal branch of government — not a manufacturing plant run by the executive branch, Tillis added.
“You start treating us like that, coordinating with us like that, we won’t have these embarrassing setbacks, and we can get back to the good work the president wants to accomplish,” Tillis told reporters.
Trump’s move to block Clayton’s confirmation comes after his administration infuriated many Senate Republicans last month by creating a controversial fund to pay people who claim they were wrongly prosecuted.
Republicans worried that people convicted of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be able to seek compensation. Lawmakers then flew home last month without passing a bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies, blowing past a deadline that Trump had set.
The administration relented and said it would not move forward with the fund, but Trump threatened Senate Republicans’ agenda again this month by tapping Pulte as acting director of national intelligence.
Democrats were furious because Pulte lacks national security credentials. He also has accused prominent Democrats of mortgage fraud, which Democrats have described as an abuse of his power as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Democrats rebelled by refusing to reauthorize a surveillance law as Republicans had wanted until Trump backed down on Pulte.
Republicans responded by rushing to confirm Clayton before Pulte was set to take office on Friday — but Trump upended those plans by directing Clayton not to appear for his confirmation hearing.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a reliable Trump ally, called it “regrettable” that Trump directed Pulte not to show for his hearing. Cotton described Clayton as a “highly qualified nominee” after pointedly declining to praise Pulte.
Trump has said he wants Pulte to downsize the director of national intelligence’s office while serving as its acting leader.
Trump’s decision has created a Gordian knot for Thune to cut before the Senate can reauthorize the surveillance law, known as Section 702. It allows intelligence agencies to gather the texts, phone calls and emails of foreigners who are living abroad and suspected of posing a threat to U.S. national security.
Republicans and Democrats have warned that it is dangerous to allow the law — which expired last week — to lapse, although some senators in both parties oppose renewing it without changes due to privacy concerns.
Trump said he does not want the Senate to confirm Clayton, who is currently the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, before the Senate confirms James McDonald, Trump’s nominee to succeed Clayton.
Trump also reiterated his long-standing demand for the Senate to pass the Save America Act, which would require Americans to prove their citizenship when they register to vote and to show photo identification when voting.
Neither demand will be easy to fulfill. Thune has said repeatedly that Senate Republicans do not have the votes to pass the Save America Act, which Democrats unanimously oppose. Four Republicans also voted against the bill this month when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) tried to add it to a bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.
“I think you make this a campaign issue, and you go after Democrats,” Thune said this week on Fox News. “I don’t think it’s helpful to go after Republicans to try and get us to do something people now know we don’t have the votes to do.”
Confirming McDonald, meanwhile, could take weeks.
The Senate has not received McDonald’s nomination from the White House. And Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) could block McDonald by not returning “blue slips,” which allow senators to block U.S. attorney nominees in their states unilaterally.
Some Republicans expressed bewilderment that Trump would hold up his own nominee.
“I still am at a loss to understand the rationale,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said.
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Thune said Thursday that he had not spoken with Trump since Trump directed Clayton not to attend the hearing and that he could not say why Trump did so.
“He’s very committed to Bill Pulte, I think,” Thune told reporters. “That’s, again, a good question. I don’t have good answers for these questions.”
Clayton’s nomination is only the latest issue on which Trump has rebuffed Thune.
The administration has not briefed Thune or other senators on the agreement it struck to end the war with Iran days after Thune requested such a briefing.
Trump also endorsed primary challengers to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). Thune repeatedly pleaded with Trump to support Cornyn, whom Thune believed was more likely to hold the seat in November.
Cassidy and Cornyn both lost their primaries last month after Trump came out against them. Cassidy in particular has become increasingly critical of Trump since losing his race.
Cassidy voted with Democrats this week to block Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran and savaged the agreement that the administration reached with Tehran, calling it “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also criticized the agreement. Wicker said in a statement that he was concerned it was “completely out of step with the President’s goals” in the war.
Thune has reserved judgment on the deal, though he offered a hint of criticism on Thursday for a proposed $300 billion fund to aid in rebuilding Iran.
“I don’t think there ought to be any financial incentives or any financial relief given to Iran absent their commitment to end their nuclear program,” Thune said.
The tensions between Trump and some Senate Republicans matter because Trump needs their support to move his agenda. The Senate is set to be in session for only eight more weeks before the midterm elections, when Democrats could win back control of the chamber.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, faces a potentially tough confirmation fight this summer. And Trump is asking Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars more for the Pentagon, including funding to pay for the Iran war.
Trump has had an easier relationship in some ways with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana).
Johnson does not have to contend with the Senate filibuster, which requires the support of 60 senators to advance most legislation. Republicans control the Senate 53-47, forcing Thune to work with Democrats much of the time. The House passed the Save America Act in February.
Democrats have sought to play up the differences between Thune and the White House — “Donald Trump pulled the rug out from under John Thune,” Schumer told reporters — but Republicans say the relationship between the two men is good.
“I have never heard the president say anything negative about Senator Thune,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) told reporters. “I think he’s frustrated we haven’t done the Save America Act. So am I. So are a lot of people back home. But I think they have a good working relationship.”
Thune said on Fox News that his conversations with Trump sometimes “get a little bit testy and heated” but that their relationship is strong.
Trump has praised Thune, even as he has expressed frustration with Republicans for failing to pass his voting legislation — which he has claimed would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans — or fire the Senate parliamentarian, the nonpartisan official who determines what is allowed under the chamber’s byzantine rules.
“I have a very good relationship with him, and I’m going to try as long as I can to keep it that way,” Trump said earlier this month on the “Pod Force One” podcast.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that Trump has “enjoyed working closely with Leader Thune and Senate Republicans to deliver on many important promises to the American people,” including the tax and domestic policy bill that Trump signed into law last year and recent legislation to fund immigration enforcement agencies through the end of Trump’s presidency.
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana) said he thought Trump and Thune had a good relationship but that Trump wants something that Thune cannot deliver: the Save America Act. He likened Trump to the hard-charging salesman played by Alec Baldwin in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” who implores his men to “always be selling.”
“That’s the president,” Kennedy told reporters. “He’s always selling. And he wants the Save Act, and he wants Bill Pulte. … You may agree with him, you may disagree with him, but that’s what he wants.”
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