“I think we've had a really productive run. There are a couple things I said right from the very beginning are going to be difficult if not impossible—frankly more impossible—to do.
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Trump Refuses to Say He Backs Thune for Another Term as Senate GOP Leader — and Republican Senators Close Ranks Around Thune
August 14, 2026
In a Punchbowl News interview published Friday, August 7, 2026, President Trump pointedly declined to say whether he would support Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) for another term leading Senate Republicans, telling Jake Sherman "I don't want to get into that necessarily." Trump said he gets along with Thune personally but called it "unfortunate that he doesn't have the votes," referring to the two demands that have driven months of friction between them: passing the SAVE America Act and abolishing the legislative filibuster. Thune has repeatedly told Trump the Senate has neither 60 votes for the SAVE America Act nor 50 votes to end the filibuster — a position vindicated on August 8, when the voter ID component of the bill failed 52-46 on the Senate floor for the sixth time. The non-endorsement was widely read as an opening for a Trump-backed challenge to Thune's leadership. Instead, when senators were asked about it in the days after, Republicans closed ranks. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) said there is "a lot of respect for John Thune" in the conference and drew an explicit line: senators may defer to the president on policy, but the choice of their leader "belongs to us." Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) — who challenged Mitch McConnell for the leadership twice and who had sided with Trump on cancelling the August recess — offered only that leading the conference is "a hard job." Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) framed the rift as a policy disagreement between two men who "like each other." Thune himself declined to escalate, pointing to what he called "a really productive run" and noting he had warned from the outset that some of Trump's asks were closer to impossible than merely difficult. The episode marks a rare instance of Senate Republicans publicly declining to follow Trump's lead, and it sets up the question of whether Trump will recruit a challenger before the conference votes on leadership after the November 2026 midterms.
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“I also think there are some things where the Senate seems willing to accede their privileges, but I think who our leader is, there's a real sense that that belongs to us.
“It's a hard job, it's really a hard job.
“I think the president and John like each other. I think these are tough issues and they obviously disagree over things like the filibuster.
“There's a lot of respect for John Thune. There's a lot of recognition of how he works and how difficult his job is and a belief that he's doing it really well under difficult circumstances.
“I get along with him. It's unfortunate that he doesn't have the votes.
“I believe strongly in terminating the filibuster, and by the way, getting SAVE America Act approved immediately.
“I don't want to get into that necessarily.