Senate Republicans choose the strongest anti-MAGA option as their next leader

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To outsiders, it looks like Donald Trump has unrivaled control over the current Republican Party. He rode a remarkable and ahistoric wave back to re-election last week that saw his allies expand their majority in the House, and the Senate will return in January with Republicans in control. For the layman, Trump and his GOP minions will have free rein over Washington for at least the next two years. Democrats, it’s best to just duck and give in, right?

But if you look a little closer, the Republican monopoly is a little more uncertain. The House of Representatives will be in chaos given the slim majority and the narrow-minded whims of some of the most right-wing members. Republicans are expected to need a handful of Democratic votes on most measures to get the must-pass legislation on target, and that will require conservatives’ wish lists to be trimmed at least a little . In the Senate, the surviving filibuster requires a 60-vote limit on most measures, again requiring a handful of Democratic votes to make major portions law. Simply put, Trump would never get a blank check from his friends in Congress.

That check became even smaller on Wednesday as Senate Republicans chose their successor to Mitch McConnell, who is ending a record 18-year term as party leader. In his place, Republican lawmakers appointed Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, who has spent the last few years closely monitoring McConnell’s control of the Senate and its quirks. As an institutionalist, Thune defeated his colleagues John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida on the second ballot, and Cornyn sought a unanimous decision.

“We are pleased to take back the majority and work with our colleagues in the House of Representatives to implement President Trump’s agenda,” Thune said after the election.

Certainly cautious words. But complete honesty? Not quite.

By choosing Thune, Republicans rejected the MAGA-backed Scott as an establishment figure who was as humble as he was efficient. Thune is one of the most powerful people in Washington that people outside the Beltway have never heard of. He has a nationwide fundraising network — $33 million was raised for Republicans this cycle alone — and his alumni are spread throughout the conservative ecosystem of Hill offices, committee staffers and K Street lobbying shops. To be clear, Thune cleverly positioned himself to become McConnell’s logical heir.

And that’s exactly why President-elect Donald Trump must stew. Trump has made his contempt for Washington part of the deal. Trump famously loathed McConnell and his insistence that precedent and decency, not haste or instinct, rule the day. Thune has a little more appetite for his gut feeling, but he is a gentleman who rightly lives up to the Senate’s staid reputation. After Trump sent a mob to attack the chamber on January 6, 2021, Thune broke with him in a big way that day. Four years earlier, Thune was among the Republicans who called on Trump to resign in the wake of the terrorist attack Access Hollywood Crisis that ultimately proved irrelevant to the race. When Trump was president, Thune was an ardent critic of Trump’s obsession with tariffs.

Although this involved a secret vote, unlike Senate votes, the fact that the chamber’s Republicans sided with Thune is an early – and perhaps premature – warning that they may not be the seal of approval that Republicans are looking for Trump had hoped. Thune nodded politely as Trump demanded the chamber give him recess appointments for his Cabinet if the confirmation hearings dragged on too long, but Thune carefully added that his legions would be working toward a speedy review – not on one-sided green lights for its candidates.

This caution and calibration is why Trump has long been suspicious of Thune. The antipathy was so great that Trump actively sought Kristi Noem as his primary challenger to Thune in 2022, although she instead ran for re-election and is now poised to become his nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Thune is a regular citizen in every sense of the word, and his colleagues have decided that they trust him more than Cornyn — another mainstream conservative — or the burned-out billionaire Scott, who dictates which measures move to the Senate and which essentially one By law they should be buried in the desk drawer.

Thune’s victory is also a signal that Trump and his inner circle – particularly billionaire Elon Musk – will not have complete control of DC. Musk had openly supported Scott at the appearance, and many in Trump’s circle had stories about how Thune was perceived, once again inflated as a disloyal supporter of the MAGA movement. But in the secret vote, Thune prevailed as the level-headed, clear-headed grandfather who was able to keep the deliberately sluggish Senate stable. With Trump likely to have his sycophants in the House ready to green-light his impulses and the courts being reshaped to his — and McConnell’s — liking, the Senate could be the most fail-safe state in government. The dam could still break, but at least for now it is holding. It might be the best that those in Washington fearful of Trump 2.0 can hope for in the next few years.

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