John Thune, Man on a Mission

Any doubt he would work with Trump is gone now. 

By James Fite | Jan 27, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and President Donald Trump have a rocky past. But the upper-chamber lawmaker has clearly put all that behind him. When he was chosen to lead Senate Republicans back in November, there were some widespread concerns about his and the president’s past disagreements. At the time, however, his fellow GOPers brushed it off, insisting that he’d work well with Trump. So far, he’s proving them right. Just a week into Trump’s presidency and a little less than a month into the legislative session, John Thune is showing himself to be a man on a mission.

John Thune Reborn

The rift between the president and the gentleman from South Dakota is well documented. After January 6, 2021, Thune called Trump’s actions “inexcusable.” He was the first in GOP congressional leadership to call for Trump to bow out of the presidential race after the Access Hollywood tape was released in 2016, in which the New York businessman spoke lewdly about women.

Trump, in turn, pressured GOP senators to back efforts to primary Thune in 2022 and oust him from Congress. Before January 6, when Thune said Trump’s goal of challenging Biden’s confirmation would “go down like a shot dog” in the Senate and urged his colleagues not to back the president’s efforts. “RINO John Thune, ‘Mitch’s boy,’ should just let it play out,” Trump tweeted at the time.

But all of that is in the past. Thune won his position by doing two things. First, he campaigned with and financially supported his fellow Republicans in the Senate. Second, he made peace with Trump and began openly supporting him. Before the new Congress was seated and Trump was inaugurated, Thune promised to forge ahead on Trump’s agenda. When some of the Donald’s close allies suggested he oppose Thune’s rise to Senate Majority Leader, he supported the lawmaker instead. Now, a week into the fresh administration, it’s clear Thune intends to keep that promise.

Legislation and Leaders

From confirming Trump appointees to passing actual legislation, Sen. Thune has been busy. He landed his first big legislative win on Friday, January 17, with the passage of the Laken Riley Act.

The act requires the Department of Homeland Security to arrest immigrants in the US illegally if they’ve been charged here with theft or a violent crime. The House initially passed the bill and sent it on to the Senate, where it was slightly amended. Thune worked with his counterpart across the aisle, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to work out an amendment process both sides could agree on, then managed to win over 12 Democrats to break the filibuster and pass the amended bill, even though he ultimately lost Schumer’s vote. The House went on to pass the new version Wednesday, January 22, 263-156, with 46 Democrats crossing the aisle.

It might not have been a hard bill to pass, but it was still significant for Thune and Trump, as it gives both their first legislative win – and on immigration, an issue the president made central to his agenda, to boot. The president is set to sign the bill into law soon, and it’ll be the first of the new administration.

It’s News, Captain – But Different!

While John Thune and congressional Republicans acted quickly to send the Laken Riley Act to Trump’s desk, the upper chamber’s real focus has been on confirming Trump’s cabinet nominees. So far, Marco Rubio as secretary of state, John Ratcliffe as CIA director, Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, and Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security – and the Senate invoked cloture on Scott Bessent’s confirmation to be Treasury secretary shortly after the Noem vote, meaning he’ll likely see a vote after the Senate reconvenes at noon on Jan. 27.

“We get them in place as quickly as we possibly can,” Thune explained during an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo. “But we are on the schedule that we laid out and one that I think enables these folks to get through the process in time to deliver for the president and for the American people.”

When asked if Senate Democrats were slowing the process, Thune explained that they were trying, but that the confirmations were ahead of schedule, based on what he called the “Obama Standard.” President Barack Obama saw 12 of his Cabinet nominees confirmed in 15 days. “So we are pushing hard,” Thune explained.

The Easy Way or the Hard Way

While there are procedural rules in the way and Democrats do have, as the minority party, ways of dragging things out, the majority leader promised to “keep moving aggressively, moving quickly, forcing people to stay and take votes on weekends.” And that’s precisely what he did this past Saturday, January 25.

Democrats dragged their feet on Ratcliffe’s confirmation vote, effectively running out the clock on the rest of the week rather than allowing time for additional confirmations. And it cost them their nights and weekends.

“Do we want to vote on these folks on Tuesday or vote on them on Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Because that’s what we’re going to do,” Thune declared. Sure enough, he forced a cloture vote for South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s appointment to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Senators invoked cloture – that is, ended the discussion phase and queued up the final vote – 61-39 Friday night at almost 10 p.m. 

The Senate convened again Saturday morning to hold the confirmation vote, which quickly went in Noem’s favor 59-34. With a majority of 53, Republicans didn’t even need the Democrat votes beyond overriding a filibuster for presidential nominees, thanks to the back-and-forth “nuking” of the process by both parties in recent years.

Immediately after the Noem vote, the Senate voted 67-29 to invoke cloture on Scott Bessent’s confirmation and adjourned until “12 noon Monday.” Presumably, this is when the Senate will carry on with the mostly inevitable process of establishing the president’s cabinet – or else.

“This can be easy or this can be hard,” Thune explained. Democrats can either take him seriously and start playing along, or they can keep trying to delay the inevitable – at the cost of their days off. Either way, John Thune is lase- focused on achieving as much of Trump’s legislative and appointments agenda in as little time as possible. He’s a man on a mission.

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Read More From James Fite Editor-at-Large

Snatching Defeat Out of the Jaws of Victory

 No one does it better than the Republicans

By Rich Kozlovich

 

This was a cartoon that appeared this week, and it really says it all, but I'm going to do a bit of history and analysis anyway, since we now know McConnell won via John Thune. 

There was a lot of CO2 wasted this week over who the GOP leaders in the Senate would be in the next Congressional term.  The House chose to keep Johnson as Speaker, and Thune as the Majority Leader in the Senate.  

It took only two secret votes in for the GOP to pick Thune, who beat out Cornyn with a vote of 29 votes to 24, and Scott who scored third in the first round of voting, and was out of the running.

Think about this, and I'm going to make an assumption here, if Cornyn got 24 votes in the second round of voting, it seems to me that means Scott had to have had 11 or less votes in the first round.  Out of 53 Republican Senators 11 or less voted for the one who had a history of  being on Trump's side. 

That left the two big McConnell RINO's, which I think is telling, and McConnell's number two man, John Thune won, who for years supported everything Ole Mitch wanted to do, or not do as the case may have been, and while he didn't vote to impeach Trump, there's a huge negative history between he and Trump.   Are we to believe he's going to be all warm and fuzzy now with his claim of being anxious to implement Trump's agenda?  You would think that would be most telling for the GOP, but apparently not.  I'll tell you what, we'll come back to that.  

Let's start with John Cornyn, who came in second with the Senate GOP:

RINO Senator John Cornyn, who’s been deeply involved in a left-wing “disinformation” group that uses the old Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense to run a so-called foreign disinformation department. Elon Musk suspects it’s actually a front to control social media behind the scenes, and he’s probably right......[he wasn't] just a gun-grabbing liberal in Republican clothes..........he’s so much more than that. Not only does he feverishly push the left’s agenda, but he’s also working behind the scenes to help run left-wing “disinformation” groups.............

And he was in Mitch's leadership group, are we to believe Mitch didn't know any of that?

Senator Rick Scott was absolutely one of the biggest Trump supporters in the Senate, and in 2022 offered this 11-Point Plan to drain the swamp and fulfill the MAGA agenda.  The GOP didn't take the Senate in 2022, but the plan showed clear intent to support a Trump agenda, which neither Thune or Cornyn have ever shown such intent.  They're part of the "establishment Democrats and Republicans and their corporate media mouthpieces view the American taxpayer as an ATM to fund their priorities."

The so-called infrastructure bill that 19 miserable, loathsome Republican senators just helped to pass shows the utter worthlessness of a corporatist Republican Party out of touch with its constituents. Most of these senators are from red states, and many of them are people Trump bailed out in 2016 and 2020 (including McTurtle) and helped to get reelected. They just gave their voters, and the American people, the middle finger. One can’t help but think they’re either incredibly stupid or incredibly corrupt; probably both if we’re being honest......

 

While both Thune and Cornyn voted nay on that bill, Mitch McConnell voted for it, and they're his acolytes, which tells of a certain mind set.  Just because they got something right once doesn't give them a pass on all the damage they've done.  Who wants to own a watch that doesn't work just because it right twice a day?

 

Eric Utter posted this piece today:

 

Thune elected majority leader, RINOs emboldened? John Thune.... is a McConnell acolyte, and a bend-over-backwards to compromise with Democrats Trump-disdaining RINO. This is a bad sign. Spineless establishment Republicans can always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Even a rout. Trump is transforming the party, and they feel threatened like the Deep Staters do..................The Democrats will do everything they can to destroy Trump and all of his cabinet picks, indeed everyone in his administration, because Trump is trying to Make America Great Again...........

 

Eric went on to say, "Republicans—all of them—need to stand up to Democrats, not aid and abet them in their quest to return to power.........".   And is that going to happen?  Here's my analysis of how Senate power will play out.  

 

There are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrat/Independent Senators, with Arizona being challenged for voter fraud, and Pennsylvania attempting to perform a massive level of voter fraud.  So, what does that mean in the real world? It means the Republicans will officially be in charge of legislation and it also means the Democrat/Independent cabal will still be in control.  

 

Why?   

 

Because the Democrat/Independent contingent will vote in lock step, and there are so many RINO's who will typically vote with the Democrats, the Democrats will still control the Senate.  The realistic numbers?   Anywhere up to 19 RINO's will give the Democrats exactly what they want, and that's the history of Mitch McConnell, and his two acolytes, Thune and Cornyn. 

After all that should we rationally believe Thune when he says he's "extremely honored” to be leading the “Republican team [that] is united behind President Trump’s agenda”? 

Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory is legendary for the Republicans because they're not who they claim to be, conservatives, they're like John Kasich, who suffers from a serious case of weird compounded by a massive infection of hubris claiming he has the right to define conservatism as he sees fit.   Which is on the left side of a one way street, and he's not alone.  

We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. - C.S. Lewis