THE INVISIBLE MAN

Will Majority Leader John Thune protect the Senate from irrelevance?

- DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Thune says that he has made it clear to the White House that DOGE cannot cut government without Senate approval, as Elon Musk appears to have done repeatedly.

On January 8th, in an ornate hall of the United States Capitol, five Republican senators stood behind President-elect Donald Trump as he talked to the Capitol Hill press. Four listened impassively, but John Thune could hardly stand still. As Trump began describing a "lovefest" in Greenland over his plans to annex it, Thune turned away, as though distracted by oncoming footsteps. He crossed his arms, stared at his feet, rocked from side to side, moved his hands in and out of his pockets, and fidgeted with his suit jacket as Trump spewed falsehoods: that the diversion of water for "a tiny little fish" had kept Los Angeles from putting out fires; that illegal immigrants were mainly murderers or mental patients; that China was "running the Panama Canal."

After Trump left, Thune, who was about to take over as the leader of the Senate's new majority, gamely echoed the President's insistence that Republicans stood "united on his agenda." Yet Thune, as he often does, subjected that agenda to notable edits, making Trump's platform sound like that of a Reaganera Republican: bolstering the military, bringing down taxes, "securing the border," producing more energy. He said nothing about Trump's signature policies across-the-board tariffs, mass deportations, a purge of the "deep state," pressing Ukraine to end its fight against Russia, pulling away from NATO. Asked about Trump's wildly impractical campaign promise to stop taxing tips, Thune said only that the idea was "on the table." Would Trump's priorities be packaged in one big bill or two staggered ones? And which chamber would take the lead? All this was "an ongoing conversation I'll put it that way," Thune said, as an aide hurried him off.