Trump upends Senate GOP plans, exposing widening party rift

Trump blew up Senate Republicans’ plan to move Jay Clayton’s confirmation and, in the process, showed how often the party’s own schedule bends around his last-minute demands. From France, where he was attending the G7 conference, Trump posted on Truth Social that Clayton’s confirmation should not advance until the Senate approved a replacement for Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor and reauthorized Section 702 of FISA.

The post forced senators to cancel Clayton’s confirmation hearing once it became clear he would not appear. It was the latest in a string of disruptions that have left Senate Republicans repeatedly scrambling to recover plans they had already lined up. Earlier in June, Trump’s announcement that Bill Pulte would serve as acting director of national intelligence helped derail an emerging Section 702 deal, after Democrats signaled they would not back reauthorization if Pulte remained in place.

The same pattern has reached fiscal negotiations. Last month, the Justice Department’s proposed roughly $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund nearly derailed a must-pass immigration enforcement bill in the Senate, while the White House ballroom project also became a source of friction as lawmakers tried to rework funding language. Senate Republicans had been preparing to resolve those fights before Trump’s intervention again changed the arithmetic.

Some senators have responded with open irritation. Shelley Moore Capito publicly criticized Trump’s timing and communication, while John Kennedy brushed off the turmoil with, “Well, duh.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune struck a more measured tone, saying, “Sometimes you get surprised,” and arguing that Republicans have had to be adaptable as the president keeps changing the field under them.

The tensions have deepened as Trump has also gone after members of his own party. He endorsed primary challengers against Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, and both senators lost and have since become more willing to criticize his administration. Cornyn and other Republicans are now warning that Todd Blanche, whom Trump formally nominated on June 8 to lead the Justice Department after serving as acting attorney general since April, will face heavy scrutiny because of his work defending Trump in the New York hush-money case and on federal criminal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The Senate Republican conference is also using amendment votes on a roughly $70 billion budget reconciliation bill to distance itself from Trump’s priorities. As midterm politics sharpen in Washington, the central question inside the GOP is no longer whether Trump can influence the agenda. It is whether Senate Republicans can still claim one of their own.