Senate Republicans Brace for What Could Be Tense Meeting With Trump

Senate Republicans on Wednesday are set to have a rare lunch with President Trump, and some aren’t ruling out the possibility that the meeting could be quite tense. The president, who was invited by a rank-and-file lawmaker rather than Senate leadership, has been pressuring lawmakers to start playing hardball with Democrats — something Senator John Thune has resisted.Mr. Trump has personally made Senate Republicans’ lives much more difficult in recent months. He has endorsed primary challengers to sitting lawmakers, pulled the nomination of his choice to be America’s spy chief, and threatened to veto legislation if his voter ID bill is not passed. No one seems to know what will happen at the lunch on Wednesday amid Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on the Senate. “I never estimate and predict how lunches are going to go,” Senator Josh Hawley tells reporters, joking about how he wished that he had a crystal ball. “I’ve never been in a meeting with him with a big group of senators where it’s been contentious or confrontational, but maybe I’m wrong” this time, Mr. Hawley says. Mr. Trump was not invited to the meeting by Mr. Thune, which would be customary in the Senate. Mr. Thune told reporters that he first heard of the invitation from Senator Rick Scott, who personally offered the president a seat at lawmakers’ weekly get-together. Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Thune noted that he and Mr. Trump have a very direct style of communication, though they sometimes disagree. “[Republicans] continue, as we move forward, to look for those opportunities where this team can pull together — House, Senate, and president … on issues that are gonna make this country safer and stronger and more prosperous,” Mr. Thune said. “We have an alignment of incentives.”One of the few Senate Republicans willing to publicly criticize the president, Senator Thom Tillis, says he expects to raise some issues with Mr. Trump in person on Wednesday. Mr. Trump previously threatened Mr. Tillis with a primary challenge before Mr. Tillis made the decision to retire, which he says gives him more freedom as a rank-and-file member. “I don’t serve at the pleasure of 50 percent of a [Republican] conference that voted for me,” Mr. Tillis says, remarking about the difficult situation Mr. Thune is in. “John [Thune] doesn’t have the luxury to speak for himself. He has to speak for a collection of members that he represents.”One of the main issues at hand for Mr. Trump is the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and the presentation of photo ID before voting. The bill can’t pass without first hitting the 60-vote threshold, however, which will never happen as Democrats are uniformly opposed to the bill. Mr. Trump says he blames, in part, Mr. Thune for not cobbling together 50 votes so that Republicans could kick off a “talking filibuster,” which would allow Republicans to pass the bill with a simple majority, but only after spending what could be months on the floor trying to exhaust Democrats. “That’s what being a leader’s about,” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday. “John is a leader and hopefully he can get the votes.”Mr. Tillis agrees with Mr. Thune that the votes for the SAVE America Act are not there. He says he hopes lawmakers can drill it into Mr. Trump’s head on Wednesday that the bill is essentially dead. “Look, we’ve got so many things to agree on, let’s just agree this is not going to move forward, get back to our agenda, and hopefully that’ll occur tomorrow,” Mr. Tillis tells the New York Sun. One senior Republican, Senator John Cornyn, is one of the lawmakers who faced a Trump-backed primary challenger. Last month, Mr. Cornyn lost the GOP primary by nearly 30 points after Mr. Trump made the decision to support Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. Mr. Cornyn tells the Sun that Wednesday will be the first time he’s spoken to the president since that endorsement was issued. “The question is, do we want to win the midterms?” Mr. Cornyn tells the Sun of what he hopes the discussion will be about Wednesday. “My question is, how do we all get on the same page and get unified rather than squabbling amongst ourselves?”A close ally of the president, Senator John Kennedy, says he does not plan to express any kind of concerns to Mr. Trump. He does think, however, that the meeting could be lengthy and that he would not be surprised if it gets contentious.“My guess is a lot of people will want to talk. We have a lot of people that like to talk. That’s why we have a lot of meetings that really should be emails,” Mr. Kennedy says.

Senate Republicans Brace for What Could Be Tense Meeting With Trump

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