Reporter's Notebook: Trump visits Capitol Hill for heated lunch with Senate Republicans

I hope they have Maalox and Pepto-Bismol when President Donald Trump visits Capitol Hill to meet with Senate Republicans at lunchtime.

Senate GOP Steering Committee Chairman and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., invited Trump to lunch on Wednesday. Some Senate Republicans may wonder if that's what's on the menu. Both Seni. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, dropped out after the president refused to endorse them and lost their primaries. Trump also clashed with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., upset that he could not carry out his legislative agenda.

Scott is the president's best friend. He lost to Thune and Cornyn in the race for majority leader in late 2024. In fact, Scott didn't even ask for the blessing of the Senate GOP leadership team to invite the president.

Scott joined Seni. Mike Lee, R-Utah, urging the Senate to approve the SAVE America Act. Proof of citizenship is required to vote. This advocacy drives Thune and other members of the GOP brass batty as the bill has failed twice. Scott and Lee want the Senate to sign up to the SAVE America Act and stay on it until the measure passes. But few understand how fatigue somehow mobilizes a majority of senators to suddenly support the bill.

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In addition, the president wants them to end the filibuster. If the SAVE America Act does not have the necessary votes to pass, there is no way you command 60 yes votes to break the filibuster.

Simple solution, right?

Not really. Thune has repeatedly said there are no votes to change the filibuster.

It's about math.

So expect heated discussions on Wednesday about what the president wants the Senate to do. Thune tried to tell the president repeatedly what the Senate can do, based on the different measures of the parliament.

And there are fears among Republicans that the president might try to sow discord over the results of the midterm elections if Democrats sweep the House and/or Senate — and Republicans never pass the SAVE America Act.

Trump has played a big fan in the Senate, but he has frustrated Senate Republicans by repeatedly pulling the legislative rug out from under his own party for weeks now.

The Senate was about to begin a “vote-a-rama” to finally pass ICE and Border Patrol funding in May. Then the managers announced their armory. A meeting between Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and GOP senators has reached a deadlock. Blanche continued to protect the bag. Some Republicans have threatened their amendment during a vote-a-rama to block the fund or protect themselves from political fallout.

Thune took the bill down and sent everyone home for over a week.

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Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks next to Jessica S. Tisch, commissioner of the New York Police Department, during a press conference at NYPD headquarters in New York City on March 9, 2026. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Then there was a carefully crafted bipartisan agreement to renew FISA Section 702, the nation's most effective terrorist tracking program. Its approval expired after the president deviated from the appointment of Jay Clayton, who he chose to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Republicans could not pass the FISA authorization on their own, so they formed a bipartisan consensus with Democrats. But Democrats withdrew their support for the bill when the president announced that housing chief Bill Pulte would take over as acting DNI from former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned. Democrats viewed Pulte as a member of the intelligence community. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., immediately scheduled a confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton if Trump nominated him.

It is believed that the Senate could confirm Clayton within days of his confirmation hearing. That would shorten Pulte's career. So, with Clayton in place, the Senate could return to the bipartisan FISA agreement and pass it.

But Trump dismissed all that last week. He insisted that Senate Republicans cancel Clayton's confirmation hearing and not move forward with his nomination until Jamie McDonald is confirmed as US Representative for the Southern District of New York. That's the position Clayton had. The president made those demands at 3:59 a.m. ET Wednesday — all without consulting Thune.

He then made his signature FISA renewal conditional on the passage of the SAVE America Act.

“That tells me he's not serious about FISA or intelligence,” one congressional Republican said of Trump. “And Pulte is a big middle finger in the intelligence community.”

So Senate Republicans are not happy about all these demands. Some began to lose confidence in the president when he abandoned the support of Cassidy and Cornyn. Now they believe that he is not thinking, he is moving in Thune, moving the goalposts of critical national security laws and waiting for the impossible on the SAVE America Act and the filibuster.

On the other hand, Scott believes that he and the president can change minds.

Trump has criticized Senate Republican leaders in general recently. But he keeps moving and calling Thune by name. Thune is well-liked by his GOP colleagues and, like many congressional leaders, has an impossible job. That's why former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., likens the job to “herding cats.”

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., and Republican senators speak at a news conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2026. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It's clear that the president currently has a better relationship with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., than Thune. But opening up Thune by name would greatly anger many of the president's allies in the Senate.

Trump often flattered former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., by not abandoning the filibuster. But it was McConnell who gave Trump three lasting legacies: Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

McConnell has set a new Senate precedent for the method he is using to confirm Gorsuch. Gorsuch would have faced an unprecedented filibuster as a fellow justice on the Supreme Court and received no confirmation.

McConnell stuck Kavanaugh through a rigorous confirmation process to confirm Kavanaugh in the fall of 2018. And he ran on Coney Barrett's confirmation dates before the 2020 election. Yet McConnell refused to hold confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee and future Attorney General Merrick Garland for nearly 11 months – because it was an election year. Blocking Garland's confirmation opened the seat for Gorsuch. But then Trump insulted McConnell the entire time.

Thune passed the One Big Beautiful Bill last year. But through no fault of his own, Thune has never been as successful as Trump's Supreme Court yet. However, the president extended some grace to the South Dakota Republican — despite his criticism of the Republican Senate.

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We'll see if that continues after lunch on Wednesday.

The legislative spat between the president and Senate Republicans over the past few weeks has been an interesting one. The pain and frustration paid off on Wednesday. And if the meeting doesn't go well, some Republicans may shout “Please, check!” to get out of there as quickly as possible.