President Donald Trump’s visit to Senate Republicans on Wednesday was meant to project party unity. Instead, it ended with senators describing frustration, stalled legislation and a private airing of grievances inside the GOP.
Trump began the day threatening to hold up a bipartisan housing bill, a measure Republicans had been preparing to present as a cost-of-living win. He tied his anger to the Senate’s failure to pass new voter ID requirements and its refusal to scrap the filibuster, according to lawmakers and people briefed on the meeting.
The president also criticized senators over a war powers resolution seeking to halt or limit U.S. military action against Iran, which passed while some Republicans were absent. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said Trump was “mad as a murder hornet” about the vote.
Several Republicans said the meeting left the party with no clear answer on the housing bill. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said, “I don’t know if stuck is the right word. But we probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Trump ended by calling for unity after spending much of the meeting criticizing GOP senators. “I primarily listened. I think there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for dialogue,” Cornyn said.
Supporters of the president said his frustration was understandable. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who invited Trump to the Capitol lunch, said, “If I was the president and I was in the middle of a negotiation to protect American lives, I would be frustrated too.”
Other senators tried to cast the dispute as a necessary reset. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said “not all of the meeting was contentious,” adding that Republicans in Congress and the White House need better coordination. Afterward, Trump called it a “great meeting” and said, “I don’t like a few people … but for the most part we have a really well unified party.”
AP reported that after the meeting, Senate Republicans later rejected a similar Iran war powers resolution in a 47-50-1 vote.
