With 95 days remaining until the midterm elections, President Donald Trump's legislative agenda is encountering significant pushback — not from Democrats, but from within his own party's Senate ranks, according to New York Magazine columnist Ed Kilgore. The intraparty friction comes at a time when Republicans hold a narrow 53–47 Senate majority, meaning that even a handful of defections can stall legislation or force leadership to seek bipartisan support.

Kilgore described the prevailing dynamic among Senate Republicans as one of retribution, emerging "at the very moment the GOP should be transforming itself into a lean, mean fighting machine for November."

At the center of the current standoff is Trump's demand that Senate Majority Leader John Thune cancel the chamber's August recess to advance the SAVE America Act. According to Kilgore, the measure lacks even majority support in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes required to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Trump's parallel call to eliminate the filibuster outright has drawn even less enthusiasm from Republican senators wary of handing future Democratic majorities greater legislative power.

Kilgore also noted that it remains unclear whether a majority exists for the budget resolution that would fund the Iran military operation and establish what critics have termed a "slush fund" designed to incentivize states to adopt components of the SAVE America Act.

While Thune has absorbed much of Trump's frustration over the Senate's inaction, Kilgore argued that the president's deeper problem lies with the Republican senators he has alienated through primary interventions. Several of those lawmakers, having already faced or survived Trump-backed primary challenges, now feel little obligation to support his priorities.

Two lame-duck senators — John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — are demanding written commitments from the administration to abandon two provisions stemming from the IRS's settlement of a Trump lawsuit: the so-called "anti-weaponization fund" and presidential immunity from future tax audits.

"[W]hy would he expect any cooperation from Cornyn and Tillis?" Kilgore asked. "The former is ending a four-term Senate career because Trump at first tolerated and then endorsed his primary opponent, Ken Paxton. The latter preemptively announced his retirement just over a year ago in response to Trump's threats of backing a primary challenge after he voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act."

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) represent two additional Republican voices now opposing the president. Trump supported primary challengers against Cassidy after the senator voted to convict him in his impeachment trial following the January 6 events. Cassidy currently opposes both the anti-weaponization fund and public financing for Trump's ballroom project. Trump has also previously aligned against Murkowski in primaries, though she ultimately prevailed, leading Kilgore to suggest the president should not expect her loyalty.

"If you sow the wind with disloyalty to your party's senators, you will reap the whirlwind in reciprocal disloyalty when you need their support," Kilgore wrote. "Blustery threats and authoritarian posturing cut little ice with people who have succumbed to or survived threats of political excommunication and career extinction. That's ultimately why Trump is spending precious days and weeks browbeating the scapegoat John Thune and denying Senate candidates life-saving time on the campaign trail."

Kilgore traced the current fractures back to earlier political decisions by the president, noting that Trump previously cost his party a Senate majority in 2021 when he "barnstormed through Georgia attacking that state's election integrity."

Source: New York Magazine — Intelligencer