What A Day - Can Senate Republicans Pass Trump's Agenda?

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is trying to get a bunch done ahead of the Senate’s long summer break, from sanctions legislation on Russia to funding the government. But none of that seems to matter to President Trump. He’s focused on the SAVE America Act – a sweeping piece of federal legislation that would dramatically change how Americans vote (and most likely, who gets to vote in the first place). Now, a group of far-right Senators – like Utah Sen. Mike Lee – are demanding Thune cancel vacation and put the SAVE America Act on the floor. So who is in charge in the Senate – John Thune, or Donald Trump? To find out, we spoke to Burgess Everett. He’s the congressional bureau chief at Semafor.And in headlines, Trump defended his sweeping tariffs during a speech at a General Motors facility in Michigan; a New York Times report revealed that the Trump Administration canceled major grants for clean-energy projects based entirely on politics; and President Trump finally got to perform his stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.Show Notes: Check out Burgess' work – semafor.com/author/burgess-everett Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail]

If you're Trump and you've been able to bend the House of Representatives to your will, and you can't do that with the Senate, that's a frustrating feeling for somebody like him who wants to have an iron grip over his party. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show that is not very surprised to tell you that according to exclusive reporting from the Washington Post, the Drug Enforcement Administration has shown that the Trump administration's military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats hasn't done anything to curtail the amount of cocaine, coming into the United States.

As always, drugs are still winning the war on drugs. On today's show, we talk about how President Donald Trump is making the lives of of Senate Republicans hell for his own dumb purposes, the semaphores, Bridges Everett. Before we get into the GOP's cruel summer, here's what we're following today, Monday, July 27th. We're going to Michigan. The car companies are doing better than they've ever done. Many, many plans are being built all over the United States. they'll be opening them over the next year. Toyota just agreed to come in, move its entire operation

out of Mexico and into the United States. They'll be opening, I guess, the largest plan to the world, somebody said, but all because of tariffs and because of me. All because of Trump. See the war over there? That's also all because of Trump. President Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One today while on his way to Michigan. Why must our greatest state be exposed to such menace. Trump attended a drag race demonstration ahead of his comments at a General Motors facility. In his speech, he touted his handling of the economy and defended his sweeping tariffs. Interesting choice for the swing state where the effects of tariffs have hurt many businesses. Early voting is underway for Michigan's August primary, which features fierce nomination

fights in both major political parties. I wonder if this speech helped Republicans. Well, Iran took a beating over the last 14 days. And they They ask us very nicely, please stop. Let's meet. And that's what we are right now. See what happens. If we don't make a deal, we go back to the same thing. Trump also talked to reporters about the latest with the Iran war. Neither the U.S. nor Iran reported carrying out any attacks for three days. They arrested after continuous bombardments. Still, to be clear, Iran has said there are no direct talks underway. Meanwhile, the four American troops killed during the recent fighting are no longer listed as part of the Iran War death toll in the Pentagon's official casualty count.

They've instead been placed in a new separate category called Overseas Operations. The category emerged on Sunday and also lists 207 wounded service members. It was unclear if all of the wounded were injured in the Iran conflict. The New York Times revealed on Friday that the Trump administration did, in fact, cancel major grants for clean energy projects based entirely on politics. That information comes from a lawsuit filed by a group of California scientists who sued the Trump administration over the cancellation of more than $7 billion in federal grants.

Back when the grants were canceled on October, Office of Management and Budget Leader Russell Vote claimed that the funds were wasted money intended to, quote, fuel the left's climate agenda. But an attorney for the Department of Energy admitted that the 284 grants that were ultimately eliminated were cut because they, quote, had a recipient location and or, at least

one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic caucusing senators. As the Times noted, hundreds of grants in red states were protected. These disclosures go against what Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed about the canceled funds during a hearing held in June, where he said, quote, no decisions were made on politics. I keep hearing that charge. It's bullshit. We're going to say it a million times. But it appears that that, claim was actually bullshit. I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire very delicious beef tenderloins,

very special beef. And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who's right here, personally ran over the cow in his car. In case you missed it, and I hope you did, President Trump finally got to perform his stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. The rescheduled event on Friday night came after a gunman, upended the original dinner in April. To no one's surprise, Trump delivered a rambling hour-long speech that praised some journalists

and took pot shots at others. In true Trump fashion, he also made jokes about public figures weight and intellect, and quipped about a fourth presidential term. So basically the same things he says on any given day. Anyway, Trump's return to the correspondent's dinner represented a notable moment in his relationship with the news media, which his administration has attacked, sued, and taken administrative action against. What was even weirder, watching all the journalists Trump has beefed with shake his hand. Very odd. And that's the news. Let's talk about the Senate. After having the first two weeks of this

month off, the Senate is buckling down on the toughest issues facing this country before taking the last three weeks of August and the first two weeks of September off. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is trying hard to get a bunch done ahead of that long break, from sanctions legislation on Russia to funding the government. But none of that seems to matter to President Trump. As we've told you many, many times before, he only seems to care about the Save America Act, a sweeping piece of federal legislation that would dramatically change how Americans vote, and most likely who gets to vote in the first place. Now a group of far-right senators, like Utah Senator Mike Lee, are demanding Thune cancel vacation and put the Save America Act on the floor. That's despite the fact that, as Thune has said many

times, the Save America Act just doesn't have the votes to pass. So who's in charge of the Senate? John Thune or Donald Trump? To find out, I spoke to Burgess Everett. He's a congressional bureau chief at Semaphore. Burgess, welcome back to what today. Hey, Jane. Thanks for having me. So this morning, our very normal president posted on true social, quote, John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to leave town. Leave town is in quotes. I don't know why. Until it passes the Save America Act, or far better still, terminates the filibuster, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of, including a full end,

deep-throated Save America Act, the budget, and the ever-looming debt-sealing disaster, comma, 1929. Now, a lot of that doesn't make any sense, but the Senate's August recess is two weeks away. Now, some Republicans, led by Utah, Senator Mike Lee, are saying they want to skip it all together in hopes of finally passing the Save America Act, which won't pass. So it seems like, and I will put this to you, for senators like Mike Lee, John Thune is not his leader, it's Trump.

What does that mean for the Senate? To put it in a little bit of context, it's fairly common for like the rabble-rousing conference people, even though in the Democrat or Republican Party to say we should cancel the recess and do more. It's kind of the same thing that happens every year. You always hear this. But the thing is, and you just mentioned it, you now have the president putting his weight behind it. and he's also putting his way behind things we've heard him talk about before, killing the filibuster, passing the Save America Act. These aren't new things from him.

But what he is doing is he's making the majority leader, John Thune's life, pretty miserable by constantly dumping on him. It's been happening more and more recently. He's been doing it on Truth Social. He did it at a rally in Georgia. So I feel like things are really coming to a head. I would be surprised if they canceled the recess, but I can't tell you that 100%,

because it's very hard. for the majority leader to be in a disagreement with the president of his own party about the day-to-day business of the Senate. And that's kind of where we're at right now. And it feels fairly unsustainable to me. Yeah. And what gets me is that legislatively, Trump is only interested in the Save America Act. It isn't going to happen for a bunch of reasons. But Republicans could be risking another government shutdown over this, especially since they don't want to end the filibuster. When you talk to Republicans about this, do they think that Trump's fixation on the Save America Act is weird because I think it's weird. Well, Senator Cornyn, who's not coming back to the Senate after he lost

his primary, so with that comes the ability to just say what he wants and what he feels, has been saying that Mike Lee has built up expectations too high and that the president has sort of embraced them as thinking it's actually possible. I would actually argue they may be losing votes at this point because I think there's folks who are so annoyed when the president attacks Senator Thune, that they're even less likely to go along with this plan. I think it's weird, yes, to grapple onto something that is not doable, but in the long arc of Trump interacting with the Senate and Congress, it's something he does fairly regularly, right? I don't know if you remember this, but he even vetoed a defense bill once because he wanted a bunch of stuff added

to it that could never pass right after he lost the 2020 election. So it's kind of par for the course, but what is new and what is frankly troubling for Republic? is that it's causing real problems in Trump's coalition in the Senate and it's causing problems for John Thune's leadership because Mike Lee is now saying he might vote against John Thune in the leadership race, which on its own isn't necessarily surprising because he supported Rick Scott. But when you're a leader and you're having success and especially if he's able to keep the majority, you often would think you're going to have unanimous backing from your conference. And when you don't, it's a problem.

If you had also forgotten how Trump loves to cause problems for his own party in the Senate, stick around. We'll get back to my conversation with Burgess Everett in a moment. In the meantime, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Zbiotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found pre-alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by a PhD scientist

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Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash Wad. That's better, help.com slash Wad. Let's get back to my conversation with Bridges Everett. Trump's relationship with Thune, as you mentioned, is falling apart, which is not helpful because you tweeted this morning that Thune has a lot on his plate before the August recess that hopefully for him they will get to have. What is at the top of his to-do list? In addition to the Save America Act, there's some bipartisan deals that could come together,

namely on college sports, which I know is a big favorite of yours, Jane. That's an episode in and of itself. Maybe we'll see if there's one to do later. I'm still kind of iffy on whether that will happen. There's also this crypto bill, right? So there's some bipartisan stuff burbling up. Because I know the Protect College Sports has to do with paying college players and some NCAA stuff. But what's the crypto bill about?

The crypto bill would establish a market structure for the crypto industry. And it's something they've been pushing for for almost a year now to come on top of a bill that they passed last year on stablecoin. I'm no crypto expert, but I can give you those sort of top lines. But Thune is basically taking a more cautious route, at least publicly at this point, he wants to pass a government funding bill through the election. Never mind that the deadline for this is two months away. I think he thinks it'll only be harder in September if he doesn't do it now. I think it's going to be hard to do it now because Democrats would lose all of their leverage if they voted for it at this point. He wants to do some Trump nominees, including the Attorney General, including the Director of National Intelligence, who will be confirmed early this week.

And then he's trying to do some Russia sanctions too. It's a little bit of a Lindsey Graham legacy play, but also we have the Ukrainian president in town this week. And so there may be an opportunity to do that. So that's already a lot. I mean, when I say two weeks still recess, it's really eight days in session. They usually work Monday through Thursday. Maybe they'll throw a Friday on there. I'm not sure.

But that's not a lot of time and that's a lot to do already. So if you add all these other things on there, it's a big headache. How much of that is realistically doable, given that it's eight days? Yeah, I think if there's eight days to do the August to until the August recess, I think they can do some nominees, maybe hold a government funding vote, and if they can get agreement do the Russia sanctions. I still think that would be even difficult. Let's say they get a deal on the Protect College Sports bill.

they would probably need to take a little bit more time to do it, or again, get an agreement to speed it up, which is its own challenge in the Senate. So I don't think there's a ton of time on the current calendar as constructed to do all of these things. I think it's pretty limited and pretty finite. And I also think things are only going to get uglier the longer. The Senate stays in session. The infighting is not going to decrease. It's going to increase because what would happen if they took up the Save America Act is it's not going to pass. It doesn't have 60 votes. Getting rid of the filibusters doesn't have 50 votes. So if this actually happens on the floor, and it fails, I don't see how that helps Thune's Trump problem.

As you mentioned, the Senate is set to vote on two new Trump nominees this week for the country's top spy, Jake Clayton and top lawyer, Todd Blanche. And thanks to the GOP Yolo Caucus, as you mentioned, like John Cornyn, who doesn't care anymore, it's not a guaranteed yes for either. From your conversations with senators, how likely is it that they'll get confirmed? I think Clayton's looking pretty good. He's got a floor vote that usually says the leadership. has figured out that they have enough votes. He may not get any Democrat votes or maybe he'll get

one or two. And the bigger question to me is we haven't even mentioned the expired surveillance law that prompted Jake Clayton from being nominated in the first place. So I have not heard anything about plans to revive that law at this point. Are we talking about my good friend FISA? Yes, we were talking about FISA, the 702 law. Now, Todd Blanche, I think Tillis and Corman, they're coming at it from different angles, but what they want is to murder the weaponization Anti-Weaponization Fund. They want to make sure it is dead, that it can never come back, that this is the end of the road for it. I don't think they feel like they've gotten there yet. There's a few days until this committee vote where they have a bunch of leverage for them to get those assurances or some

sort of deal or maybe even agreement from the White House to work on legislation that would prohibit the anti-weaponization fund. So I view that as probably more than a 50% chance he gets out a committee. But again, you mentioned it. Cornyn and Tillis don't necessarily have a ton to lose. And so at some point, they may have to make a stand so that people are taking them seriously because there's been a couple other times when they've kind of used leverage and maybe not followed through 100% the way that they said they would. Let's go back to John Thune very quickly. Now, as you mentioned, he currently resides in Hill, where Trump yells at him a lot. And yet you mentioned John Thun wants to be leader again. Why?

Well, I mean, it's very interesting question, right, because previous leader, Mitch McConnell's entire existence built up to being majority leader. It was his lifelong dream, right? I don't know that that was John Thune's lifelong dream. I've been covering him since I covered the Senate. He's one of the first senators I really got to know. He's someone that might have run for president in a more establishment friendly environment. But he's also kind of cognizant of that. So he didn't run for president because he said, and I mean, he basically said, I'm part of the establishment. That's not very in vogue right now. But where being in the establishment can be helpful is congressional leadership. And so what he has done is he's basically told Trump bad news probably too often, but he's being realistic with Trump about what can and can't happen. And so he has to say, we can't pass this budget. We can't pass the Safe America Act. And that's what's led to this tension.

But the reason that he would probably do it for another term, which would be two years after this election, is that he's sort of seen as like a steadying force for the Republican Party. Yes, President Trump has taken over the Republican Party. But as long as somebody like John Thune is running it, the sort of like old school throwback Republicans still have a big voice and a seat at the table. So I think he's seen as a steadying force and a very chaotic Republican Party right now. And I think he probably gets a lot of encouragement behind the scenes from his members to

continue on this job, which is honestly pretty thankless at times. Yeah. I mean, again, Trump just yells at him all the time on the internet. And then there's this real thing in right wing media about how every Republican voter is very focused in the Save America Act. And I saw one conservative writer kind of describing Thune as being a cartoon villain of sorts at this point. So it's interesting that you get that experience online. But you're saying that in person, he's getting a ton of support from other Republicans. Yeah.

And I think, you know, if you go back two years when we're looking at who is the next leader going to be, like this is not a new thing. the Trump-Thune tension. Like, Trump in 2022, wanted to primary Thune for remarks he made about his efforts to challenge the election in 2020, right? Like, this has been a long-running thing. And it was a problem then. Senator Thune went out of his way to reestablish a relationship with Trump and kind of get on his good side and essentially find a way to work together.

And I think they were able to do that pretty well through most of 2025. Trump would put new tariffs on. Thune hates tariffs. He would generally not say, I hate tariffs. He would kind of keep it in. He would kind of censor himself on the things that Trump was doing that he didn't like. I think that's getting a bit harder to do now because Trump is being so confrontational to him. Now, something I've been thinking a lot about lately is that Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossev said earlier this month that most Republicans think that Trump has, quote, lost it.

And with all of this back and forth over the state of America, Act, all of this focus on stuff that can't really pass, which is obviously not new. Is that just a campaign line? Or are you hearing anything in your conversations with GOP members that Trump has gotten more difficult to work with or more difficult to have to deal with? Yeah, I mean, I would say that Democrats have been saying that Republicans are turning on Trump since Trump was the Republican nominee. Right. Yeah, it's been 10 years. The turning that would have happened by now. Yeah. So, you know, I definitely take that in a grain of salt. That's not to Republicans don't think like he's erratic or that he doesn't frustrate them, like he certainly does.

But the idea that there's some, you know, huge rebellion coming, I think we need to step back and remember that Trump's going to be president for two and a half more years. And he is still the leader of the party, both in title and in practice. So I just think it's a little bit of wishful thinking sometimes among Democrats that this big turn is coming. I do feel, though, like the way he has conquered the Republican Party, particularly in the House, right? Like, they have a tiny majority and they've been passing a lot of the stuff that he wants makes the Senate more frustrating to him, right? Like, here's a group of 53 people and the Senate Republicans that he just can't crack. And it's not a really a workable majority for him because he's got those retiring

members, right? He's got the members that he ousted from office and made them lose their primaries and John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy. And then he's got moderates like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. He's got Rand Paul who's going to do his own thing. Mitch McConnell is absent now, but even when Mitch McConnell is there. He's not just voting the way Trump wants him to. That's a lot of defections to begin with. And so if you're Trump and you've been able to bend the House of Representatives to your will, and you can't do that with the Senate, that's a frustrating feeling for somebody like him who wants to have an iron grip over his party. Burgess, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Jane. That was my conversation with Burgess Everett, Congressional Bureau

Chief at Semaphore. Before we go, we are so excited to announce a new limited series from Crooked. It's called Long Play. The South is the new epicenter of American politics. It's the fastest growing region in the country. One where power in Congress and the electoral college is growing and changes to the Voting Rights Act have raised the stakes even higher. For both major parties, the path to winning America runs to the South. But to win it, you have to understand it. Long Play is a limited series from the folks who brought you showtimes, The Circus. Across six southern states, Longplay examines the issues driving voters, the assumptions that no longer hold, and what the rest of the country is missing about a region that could shape the future of our politics and our country.

It's really excellent work from Emmy-nominated host and Southerner Jennifer Palmieri, former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landreau, and award-winning journalist Aaron Haynes. From Crooked Media and Left, Left, Right Now, wherever you get your podcasts, or on YouTube at YouTube.com at Longplay series. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review. Thank you, Dylan Mulvaney, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how I am absolutely not going to share audio from Friday night of Trump railing at a journalist

and insulting a trans woman at the same time for his own shitty reasons. Instead, I'm going to let actress Dylan Mulvaney tell you what she has that shitty people like Trump don't. Like, what is it that I have that they don't? Oh my God, freedom. I am free in a way that they will never have the privilege to experience, and they want to use their power to take away my freedom. But what they don't understand is that my freedom has like zero contingency on what they can

provide for me. Because my freedom is fully dependent on the moment that I acknowledged my real authentic self in every day since. Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. And remember, being yourself might enrich some people. But doesn't that just tell you what you need to?

know about them. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Forre, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Canter. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.