Senate conservatives just handed themselves leverage — and bought time to force Trump’s priorities into the final bill.
Three Republican senators who threatened to tank a party-line spending vote Friday pulled back after speaking directly with President Donald Trump. The trio — Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Mike Lee (R-UT) — told reporters Trump agreed to delay the budget fight until September, giving conservatives more time to extract concessions from GOP leadership.
The move avoids a humiliating floor defeat just as the Senate prepared to leave for a five-week August recess.
“When we have the finest among us — the men and women in our armed services — in harm’s way, it is beyond unfortunate that providing support for their efforts and protection has turned into a partisan issue. The same can be said for supporting farmers, our intelligence services, and election integrity.”
Johnson, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and a lead author of the spending blueprint, released that statement Friday morning alongside the proposal itself. The blueprint funds the Iran war effort, includes Trump’s election integrity priorities from the SAVE America Act, and authorizes up to $150 billion in new deficit spending.
But the proposal ran into GOP resistance. Centrist Republicans oppose the election security provisions. Defense hawks say the $60 billion allocated for the Pentagon and Iran operations falls drastically short — the White House is seeking $350 billion.
The budget would have bypassed the 60-vote filibuster through reconciliation, the same process Republicans used last year for Trump’s tax bill and earlier this year for the immigration package. A third reconciliation bill has been the plan all along — but timing turned into a fight.
Johnson and his conservative allies pushed relentlessly for a vote before recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) had been contemplating floor time for the measure sometime after August recess, knowing the votes weren’t there yet.
Thune told reporters Friday it was a “good question” why Republicans would hold a doomed vote. Had the motion to proceed succeeded, it would have triggered an open-ended amendment process — a vote-a-rama — that Democrats have weaponized in past reconciliation bills to stall and delay.
The proposal also includes billions in assistance for farmers and instructs 11 different committees on policy priorities. The House passed its own version last month with up to $95 billion in total spending before leaving for summer break.
Once both GOP-controlled chambers pass matching budget outlines, they can approve a third reconciliation spending package with simple majorities — no Democratic votes needed.
The delay gives conservatives leverage to force changes. Johnson, Scott, and Lee now have five weeks to rally support for tougher election integrity provisions and higher defense spending before the Senate reconvenes in September.
Thune was scrambling Friday to finalize a deal that would send senators home for August. The chamber was set to vote as early as late Friday or Saturday morning on a separate voter ID proposal from Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) that failed to attract any Democratic votes in February.
