Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) is warning that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is "being too cautious" on President Trump's agenda — confirming what every Trump voter already suspects: Republican control of the Senate means nothing if leadership won't fight.
With fewer than 100 days before the midterm elections, the GOP-led Senate is sitting on the House budget resolution, the SAVE Act to require proof of citizenship for voter registration, a cryptocurrency market structure bill, and sanctions legislation — all while Thune tries to negotiate with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who Kennedy says can't cut a deal even if he wanted to.
"Look, I mean no disrespect. I love John Thune. He's my leader. He's got a big brain. He's better looking than me, but I think he's just being too cautious," Kennedy told CBS News' "Face The Nation." He said Thune "wants to spend the rest of our time talking with Schumer about shutting down government, and the Graham Platner wing of his party is not going to let Schumer agree with us. They already want to give Schumer a bathrobe, a Popsicle, and an early bedtime, and have him retire. I don't think Chuck can agree with us. I think he's going to shut down government."
The White House is losing patience, too. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump's "patience is running out" with Thune, and the president told Georgia supporters to "call John Thune...and tell him to get this stuff approved."
Kennedy laid out what should hit the floor immediately: the House budget resolution — "the only chance we have to get money to defense, the farmers, and to take another crack at the SAVE Act" — along with adding Iran to the Graham Russian sanctions bill and the crypto market structure bill. Democrats have repeatedly blocked the SAVE Act, and Thune told the New York Post Republicans don't have "close" to the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster, leaving the budget reconciliation process as the only viable path.
On elections, Kennedy was blunt: "You have to prove you are who you say you are in order to register to vote and to vote," and "we need to go back to having an election day, not an election month."
But Kennedy's instincts aren't uniformly America First. The Daily Caller reported that on the same broadcast, Kennedy argued against withdrawing from the Iran conflict, calling it a "huge, huge mistake" — this despite 67% of Americans telling a CBS News/YouGov poll they want the conflict ended now. Kennedy said the U.S. should "stay the course, at least for a few more months" if it can "stand the pain of the rising cost of energy," and called for bombing an underground Iranian nuclear facility known as Pickaxe Mountain. He was skeptical of Trump's preference for daily strikes — "sometimes you have to kill a few chickens to scare the monkeys. I don't think that's going to work with the Iranian leadership" — but still wants American involvement to continue, with no troops and no defined exit.
Kennedy did criticize Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over a $67 billion request to fund the war and called for better public messaging from the administration. Still, the same senator demanding Thune fight for the domestic agenda is urging the country to absorb rising energy costs for an overseas entanglement most Americans want done.
Kennedy is right that Thune's caution is a choice, not a circumstance. The question is whether Senate Republicans will fight on the things that matter — or whether the uniparty instinct to negotiate with Democrats and stay in foreign conflicts runs deeper than any agenda the voters sent them to advance.
