Trump's Grip on Senate Republicans Weakens Amid Legislative Standoff

Donald Trump clearly fashions himself the King of DC, if not the outright King of America. Now, he wants both houses of Congress, led by his own Republican Party, to bend the knee.

The Senate left town late Wednesday afternoon, and will be gone through nearly half the month of July after what should have been the chamber’s biggest win of 2026 instead left lawmakers shuffling out of the Capitol on a sour note. Both chambers of Congress defied the stereotype of Washington gridlock and passed a piece of housing affordability legislation along bipartisan lines, with the legislation finding supporters ranging from MAGA Tom Cotton to lefty Elizabeth Warren in the upper chamber.

That was apparently a mistake.

The major bipartisan achievement was quickly overshadowed by the president’s ongoing crash-out over the SAVE America Act. A set of hardline MAGA election reforms built around voter ID requirements, the bill has become Trump’s sole priority as he faces the fraught midterm elections in November and looks to fight, in his mind, the Democrats’ greatest advantages: using mail-in ballots to boost vote counts and, as he often claims, outright “election fraud.”

Lawmakers flew out of Washington with the housing package in limbo, due to become law but with the shadow of a possible veto looming for 10 days. And it’s far from alone, joining the stalled FISA reauthorization bill and the nomination of Trump’s new director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, as the president’s ongoing feud with the Senate gums up the works. The upper chamber is now at a virtual standstill, even as Republicans plot a third budget reconciliation package aimed at funding the war in Iran and possibly accomplishing a murky set of other potential policy objectives.

“That was his call to make,” a disappointed Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN of Trump stalling the housing bill. “What I would say is that the bill is a bill that's been worked on for a long time. It’s an affordability issue, and eventually I hope he'll find his way to sign it.”

Even as Donald Trump seemingly has no path forward to see the SAVE America Act become law, he’s unwilling to relinquish his demands — and he’s proving that he can threaten House and Senate Republicans where it really matters.

This week the president sought to tighten his grip on the Senate. On Wednesday he made a rare appearance on the Hill, invited to a lunch by the Senate GOP steering committee’s chairman, Sen. Rick Scott, and escorted into the event by Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

What was billed as a “unity lunch” ended up being a show of force: Trump “yelled” at Sen. Bill Cassidy, a recent addition to the list of Republican rebels on War Powers votes, calling him a “lunatic”, according to those present.

“I perceived it as an attempt to bully me for asking a question that I think the American people need to know,” Cassidy told reporters afterwards.

“I lost my temper,” admitted Cassidy. “It's the Irish in me.”

It didn’t end there. Cassidy, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed challenger last month, and who thus would seem to have little to lose by bucking the president, was then summoned to the White House by Vice President JD Vance for an exclusive Iran briefing to allay the demands for more information he’d outlined only hours earlier — a fence-mending moment, but also a calling of bluffs.

“I want to thank Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Witkoff for the thorough briefing this afternoon on Iran. I appreciate the quick invitation to the White House to address many of my concerns,” tweeted Cassidy later Wednesday evening.

By the end of the night both Cassidy and another wayward Republican, Sen. Rand Paul, had fallen back into line and shot down the Senate’s latest attempt at passage of a War Powers resolution Wednesday afternoon.

This confrontation has been on the horizon for months. The Senate’s growing dissatisfaction with the White House is public knowledge in D.C., and the upper chamber has been the site of a growing trickle of Republican defections that now rivals the loss of control Trump experienced in the immediate wake of the Jan. 6 attack.

It was most pronounced in late May when another explosing all-GOP lunchtime meeting with a representative of the administration, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, resulted in fireworks. At that meeting, one month ago, it was the president’s demand for a $1.776 billion “slush fund” to combat “weaponization” of the Department of Justice against January 6 rioters and others which appeared to have the caucus in a full-scale revolt.

Wednesday’s meeting was a crucial moment for the president and the White House. With the Senate GOP slipping out of Trump’s grip, it was his last chance to assert that control before the midterm elections are in full swing. With the Senate now in recess for the July 4 holiday, lawmakers will have only the latter half of July to act on SAVE America, reconciliation 3.0, and any other priorities the White House has in mind before the August recess.

By September, the political will for passing major legislation in either chamber could be sapped dry, as many lawmakers will be deep into campaign mode. At the end of September is another government funding deadline, which will also consume a good portion of Congress’s time.

It’s not fully clear how this current deadlock will end. Even with Trump bringing the chamber to a full halt, he can’t force Republicans to get on board with dumping the filibuster — especially given how increasingly likely it is that Democrats will come within striking distance of a majority this fall, or even claim one in the upper chamber. Speaker Mike Johnson and Thune can arrange for the House- and Senate-passed housing bill to become law without Trump’s signature, but that might end up provoking a veto fight and put vulnerable Republicans in uncomfortable spots.

There’s still no foreseeable path forward for FISA’s reauthorization without Trump backing down from his veto threat against that legislation. Trump may end up backing down after delays make it clear that the Senate simply can’t bend to his desires on this issue.

But even if he does, he has just given Republicans a very painful reminder that he will brook no outright rebellions on his watch.