Hot off the press from the hill:
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is stepping down from his leadership post in November, ending his history-setting tenure as longest serving Senate party leader.
McConnell, who turned 82 this month, is announcing the decision in a speech on the Senate floor.
And from Reuters, there is every indication that the current #2 in the US Senate, South Dakota’s Senator John Thune will be running for the top spot.
Senators John Thune the No. 2 Senate Republican, and John Cornyn were expected to vie for the top party job. It was unclear what other senators might jump into the race.
Good for Senator Thune! Looking forward to his steady and well-seasoned service for South Dakota helping the entire Senate.
Noem will be VP and Thune will be Senate Leader. What an incredible timeline.
They could do incredible things for South Dakota in those positions!!
That would be interesting, Noem as VP fighting to advance President Trump’s agenda while Minority Leader Thune works hard to undermine Trump in the Senate.
To be clear it’s not Trumps policies he ever had a problem with so you can sleep tonight.
That’s factually inaccurate. Thune supported the Trans Pacific Partnership and disagreed with Trump’s bilateral approach to trade agreements.
Sorry Kellyann, I don’t have alternative facts. 538politics
gives Thune a score of over 91% agreement with Trump policies which is 18th of 535 and of that top 20 there isn’t much difference in percentage. Thune called out Trump’s BS, took his wrath and still got the support of SD in a landslide.
That proves SD still knows right from wrong and when Trump is wrong, he can say it!
As I understand it, the Reuters story is correct: there are *three* Johns in contention for Republican Leader: John Thune, John Barrasso, and John Cornyn. If I remember correctly, the last time a vote count was done, Thune was in the lead but had less than half the GOP caucus votes in support.
The McConnell announcement helps explain Thune’s recent endorsement of Donald Trump. The endorsement was far from enthusiastic, which isn’t surprising, but it was necessary to avoid opposition from the GOP caucus’s most conservative members.
One Uniparty guy for another.
I’d prefer Borasso over Thune. There’s at least a chance Borasso would work with President Trump. Thune certainly would not.
It’s Thune’s job if he wants it. Trump thinks Cornyn is too old and Barrasso too weak. Make more sense for Barrasso to go for Whip anyway. Besides, oddly enough, Trump respects those who stand up to him and being good looking is important to him also.
Thune’s basically been doing the job for the past year anyway and the R senators will know what they’re getting. A guy who listens to the conference and isn’t afraid to take the heat.