Inside the Trump-Senate meltdown
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President Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on the way to a lunch meeting at the U.S. Capitol on June 24. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump's lunch with GOP senators devolved into a lengthy shouting match between him and outgoing Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
Why it matters: Trump's handling of the war in Iran and the Senate's passage of a war powers resolution consumed the conversation, despite Trump's renewed pressure to pass a voter ID bill and kill the filibuster.
- Trump kicked things off by calling out the four Republican senators who voted Tuesday for the war powers resolution to rein in his military campaign in Iran.
- Cassidy then stood up, telling Trump, "You have not told the American people what's going on. It was supposed to last four weeks. It's lasted four months," the senator told reporters afterward.
It went off the rails from there. The president twisted the knife, bringing up Cassidy's recent primary loss to a Trump-backed challenger, Cassidy and others said.
- "If someone tries to bully me and say, 'Wait a second, because I am whatever I am, I'm going to bully you.' I ain't going to put up with it because I'm sticking up for my people," Cassidy told reporters. "I make no apologies for standing up to the president."
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) described the lunch as "spirited." One source in the room described Cassidy's anger level as "out of body." Trump, at one point, told Cassidy to sit down.
Between the lines: Trump urged senators to pass the SAVE America Act and do away with the filibuster — demands he has made numerous times before.
- But there was little productive conversation about the next step for SAVE, nor the fate of a bipartisan housing bill after Trump canceled a planned Wednesday signing ceremony at the last minute.
- Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) did not say anything during the lunch, sources said.
- "I think everybody walked out with the very same opinion they had before he came in, but, you know, we heard him out," Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters of the debate about doing away with the filibuster.
What they're saying: "The President got a lot of things off his chest," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told Axios.
- Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who organized the lunch, told reporters that Trump was "disappointed" with senators who had voted for the war powers resolution.
- "I think if I was a president, and I was in the middle of a negotiation to try to protect American lives, I would be frustrated too," Scott said.
Zoom out: Trump was joined by top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
- Trump defended the Iran deal and praised Vice President JD Vance extensively for his role in securing the agreement, sources familiar with the discussion told Axios.
