Why Are Republican Senators Sabotaging Trump?

As of today, whether you want to hear it or not, the midterm election season is officially underway.

The first primaries of the year were held on Tuesday in Texas, North Carolina, and Arkansas. I must report, first of all, that my personal favorite candidate, Jasmine Crockett, tragically did not prevail in her bid to become the first Senate nominee in U.S. history with a lower IQ than the average pumpkin. Crockett lost her Senate bid to James Talarico, who is smarter than a pumpkin, and even smarter than most of the other members of the squash family.

But at least I can say this for Ms. Crockett. She is as dignified and honest in her loss as she has been throughout her entire career. Which is to say that she’s accused the other side of cheating, and initially refused to admit that she actually lost:

???? LMFAO! Jasmine Crockett is ALREADY coming out and saying there was CHEATING in the Democrat US Senate Primary in Texas, as it’s looking like she’ll lose

But wait: I thought Democrat cheating was just a “CONSPIRACY THEORY”?! ???? pic.twitter.com/AWp01jrRrU

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 4, 2026

Source: @nicksortor/X.com

Remember to update your scorecards at home. It is officially okay to question the results of a democratic election again. Provided, anyway, that you’re black, and a woman, and a Democrat. In any case, it’s shocking that she would lose in this way. Indeed, cheating is the only possible explanation. Especially if you go back and watch her career highlights. Which, even though Jasmine Crockett is not really the subject of our monologue today, we’ll watch them now anyway: 

The best of Jasmine Crockett

pic.twitter.com/uXvN1Lq3FQ

— ALX ???????? (@alx) March 4, 2026

Source: @alx/X.com

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how a woman of such eloquence and elegance, a woman who looks and sounds like a part-time Waffle House waitress, could have lost her senate campaign.

But she wasn’t the only shocking loss. There was also the legitimately surprising defeat of the neocon Dan Crenshaw, which obviously signals the direction the Republican Party is headed towards.

Tuesday was also a reminder — and this is what I actually want to talk about today — that the leaders of the Republican Party are doing everything they can to sabotage the second Trump administration — and to ensure that a candidate like Trump never wins the presidency ever again. This is the single most important story in the country right now, but because of the war in the Middle East, it’s not getting anywhere near the attention it should. As DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testified in the Senate yesterday, outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina declared that, because of his frustrations with the DHS, he would go out of his way to undermine the president’s agenda at every available opportunity.

Watch:

Source: PBS News/YouTube.com

In other words, because the DHS Inspector General isn’t happy with Kristi Noem’s responses, Thom Tillis is going to burn everything down. The administration won’t be able to appoint anyone or pass any legislation as long as the Inspector General of the DHS says Kristi Noem is stonewalling.

To be very clear about what’s going on here — the inspector general of the DHS is named Joseph Cuffari. In 2024, when Joe Biden was president, a committee of inspectors general and federal officials determined that Cuffari had “abused his authority and engaged in substantial conduct” that would justify his removal. The allegations of wrongdoing included claims that Cuffari had interfered in independent investigations, fired a whistleblower who reported his misconduct, lied during his nomination process, and spent millions of taxpayer dollars to hire a law firm to advance his own interests.

Source: Washington Post

This is the inspector general that Tillis is throwing his support behind. He’s an official who’s obviously corrupt, even though his job is to prevent corruption. This is the person Noem needs to placate, apparently.

In particular, according to Tillis, Kristi Noem needs to answer questions about why ICE is deporting so many illegal aliens.

Watch:

Source: PBS News/YouTube.com

It’s indistinguishable, in every way, from the questions the Democrats asked throughout this hearing. First of all, yes, we want “numbers.” The more illegal aliens who are deported, the better. It doesn’t matter if those illegal aliens have committed additional crimes or not. The simple fact that they’re in this country is a major problem. They need to be deported.

But Tillis disagrees. His position, and the position of most establishment Republicans, is that illegal entry into the United States is no big deal. Tillis also believes that violently interfering with ICE is no big deal, either, which is why he brought up Alex Pretti and Renee Good — who everyone on the planet has already forgotten about, except Thom Tillis.

Watch:

Source: PBS News/YouTube.com

There you have it. According to Thom Tillis, Leftists aren’t threatening ICE agents because they want open borders, lawlessness, and the destruction of the United States. Instead, Leftists are threatening ICE agents because of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Never mind the fact that the ICE agents were being threatened long before either of those activists died. Never mind the fact that both Alex Pretti and Renee Good decided to attack ICE agents in order to prevent them from doing their jobs. Never mind the fact that the Left openly celebrated the murder of one of the top conservative leaders in the country, simply because they didn’t like his opinions. We’re supposed to believe that there’s a universe where the Left would be totally fine with immigration enforcement if only the DHS had conducted a more transparent investigation into the shooting of the lesbian who drove her SUV into an ICE officer.

This is nothing new for Tillis. In 2024, he was the ringleader of a fake amnesty bill in the Senate, which was intended to undermine the president’s immigration policy. But lately, he has become a lot more animated in his disdain for this administration. In case it’s not obvious, Tillis is shouting all of the time because he’s trying to impress some non-profit or university. He wants to get a job when he leaves Washington, which is a day that can’t come soon enough. And that’s why, when he was dealing with Biden’s DHS secretary, he had a very different approach:

Watch very carefully to see if you can spot the difference in how “Republican” Thom Tillis treats the DHS Secretary who allowed 15M unvetted illegal aliens in the U.S. versus the one who is trying to deport them pic.twitter.com/H76jk4ECbT

— Corey Inganamort ???????????? (@TheBirdWords) March 3, 2026

Source: @TheBirdWords/X.com

Watching this, you might say that Thom Tillis is leaving office because he’s unpopular, so what’s the big deal? He’s just one outgoing Republican senator who’s threatening to derail the president’s agenda. How bad can things be?

The problem is that Thom Tillis is not, in fact, an exception. He represents the entrenched Republican power structure in Washington. The leadership of the party does not want to enact Donald Trump’s agenda. They’re doing everything they can to interfere with it. The GOP leader in the Senate, John Thune of South Dakota, is about to send the Senate off to vacation. And instead of giving a speech where he outlined some kind of plan to advance legislation that the White House is pushing for, Thune simply complained about Democrats, over and over again. 

Watch:

Source: JohnThune/YouTube.com

This isn’t going to cut it. 

Democrats are going to use every tool they have — including a government shutdown — to get what they want. We don’t accomplish anything by whining about it. Instead, we should be using every tool that we have to achieve our own policy objectives.

For starters, instead of standing in the way of Trump’s appointments — as Thom Tillis is doing — Republicans in the Senate could go on recess for 10 days or longer. Under current law, that would allow the president to make “recess appointments” to key positions, including seats on federal courts, if he chooses to do so. No approval from the Senate is necessary as part of a recess appointment. And that’s important because, as we’ve discussed before, the Senate follows a so-called “blue slip” process, which allows an individual senator to veto a nomination, as long as the nominee is from her home state. It’s an outdated and pointless process, but Republicans are going along with it.

But here’s the issue: Thune has deliberately prevented recess appointments from occurring. And he’s done so by holding so-called “pro forma” sessions in the Senate. The idea is that, even though the Senate is on vacation, they hold a quick session with basically no one in attendance. And that “resets the clock” on recess appointments. It prevents the Senate from counting as “in recess” for the 10 days that are required by law. 

Here’s what these pro forma sessions look like. This is from last summer:

During August recess, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune plan to call the House and Senate into session every four or five days, with practically no one there, for the sole purpose of preventing Trump from making recess appointments. Here was today’s House “pro-forma” session: pic.twitter.com/sK1tZTCdYQ

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2025

Source: @RepThomasMassie/X.com

The clerk gets up there, reads some nonsense for less than 2 minutes, and everyone goes home. The sole purpose of these “pro forma” sessions is to prevent Donald Trump from making recess appointments.

Did you know this was going on? Did you have any idea that the president’s own party — which controls both houses of Congress — is using a procedural mechanism to block him from appointing administration officials, along with dozens of US attorneys and judges? That’s what Republicans in the Senate are doing.

For the same reason, Republicans in the Senate aren’t taking any action to advance the SAVE Act, which is short for “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility.” This is, in every respect, the single most important piece of legislation that anyone currently serving in Congress has ever considered. 

Passing this legislation is the most important thing that any of them can possibly achieve right now, by far. That’s why Donald Trump specifically called on Republicans to pass the SAVE Act during his State of the Union Address. This law will determine whether we have fair elections, real elections going forward. It will determine if Americans get to decide who leads them, or if foreign invaders get to decide for them. That’s what’s at stake. 

The terms of the SAVE Act are straightforward: If you want to register to vote or update your voter registration, then you need to present documentary proof that you’re a citizen. And you need to present this proof in person. A passport would satisfy this requirement all by itself. A majority of Americans have a passport already. 170 million Americans, in fact. Which means if you don’t have one, it’s not very hard to get one. 170 million Americans have already done it. 

But if you don’t have one and don’t want to get one, then a birth certificate paired with a driver’s license will satisfy the requirement. Additionally, the law would require that voters show photo identification in order to cast a ballot in person. If voting absentee — which would only be allowed in rare cases — a copy of the photo identification would need to be provided.

There is no good-faith basis whatsoever for opposing this legislation. There is no valid argument against it. The only argument is that some American citizens might be too dumb or lazy to fulfill the rudimentary requirements. But as I’ve explained, far from being an argument against it, that’s just one more justification for it. Anyone who can’t live up to the baseline standards this law puts in place shouldn’t be voting. Either it means they aren’t citizens, or they’re exceptionally stupid and lazy. In any of those cases, they shouldn’t be voting. That’s why everyone, outside of elected representatives in the Democrat Party, supports it. Gallup just ran a poll finding that 84 percent of Americans support the voter-ID requirement. 83 percent support the requirement that first-time voters provide documentary evidence of citizenship. It’s extremely difficult to get broad, bipartisan agreement like this. 83 percent of Americans wouldn’t agree on whether or not the Earth is flat.

So everyone knows why Democrats have an issue with the SAVE Act. As Trump said, they want to cheat. They want to flood the United States with illegal aliens, allow them to vote — using the honor system — and permanently seize control of the country. That’s been their game plan for many years now. They’re on the verge of success. And Republicans have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stop it.

It wouldn’t even take any special effort. That’s what you have to understand. If the Republicans fail here, it is because they chose to fail. They want to fail. They don’t want to protect our elections. They have no other excuse. The obstacle right now is that Democrats are threatening to filibuster the bill. And under normal circumstances, 60 votes are needed to end the filibuster and hold the vote. All John Thune would have to do is keep the Senate’s legislative session open and force a “standing filibuster” on this particular piece of legislation. Under a standing filibuster, if they want to delay a vote, Democrats can’t simply announce their intent to block the legislation. Instead, they would have to get up, walk to the podium, and talk endlessly — without taking any breaks. If they take a break, then they’re done. They have to pass the torch to another Democrat. And if they can’t do that, then the filibuster ends, and Republicans can hold a vote.

Eventually, the standing filibuster would come to an end — since senators can’t return to the podium more than two times during any one “legislative session.”. It wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone — including Republicans, who would have to remain near the Senate chamber at all times, in order to ensure that there’s a quorum. If there’s no quorum, then the legislative session ends, the speech counter resets, and Democrats can go back to the podium the next day and filibuster some more.

But this is what we elected Republicans to do. This is the most important fight they can undertake. They don’t even have to change the rules of the Senate to do it. They just have to stay near the Senate complex for a few days. That’s it. Instead, here’s what John Thune is up to. 

This is one of his social media posts yesterday:

“Great to sit down with members of Ducks Unlimited, including the students who started the SDSU chapter of DU, who are working to further wildlife and conservation priorities in the state.”

Instead of sitting down with the members of the Mighty Ducks or whatever and whining about Democrats, John Thune needs to put the SAVE Act up for a vote. And if Democrats want to filibuster, he needs to require them to stand up and talk until they can’t talk anymore. And then, when the bill is passed, the president will sign it. And we’ll have some chance of fair elections in this country going forward.

If that’s too much for Senate Republicans, they also have the option of eliminating the filibuster entirely. We all know that Democrats will do it, the first chance they get. No use fretting that if you do it, they’ll do it. They’ll do it regardless. The Democrats are fighting fascists and Nazis and Darth Vader, remember? They’ll do anything at all that they need to do to advance their agenda. There’s no reason we shouldn’t do the same thing — especially since the odds are very low that Republicans will remain in power in Congress for much longer.

Right now, Republicans have a real chance of losing Senate races in several key states in November, from Alaska to Ohio to Georgia. Meanwhile, the establishment wing of the GOP is throwing around enormous amounts of money to prop up neocons like John Cornyn, who spent something like $70 million to receive 43 percent of the vote in yesterday’s primary in Texas, while Ken Paxton spent around 4 million to receive 40 percent of the vote. And Paxton probably would have won outright if there hadn’t been a spoiler candidate in the race.

There is ample evidence, in other words, that the Republican Party is in a state of managed decline. The leaders are waiting for Donald Trump’s exit at this point. Frankly, it doesn’t appear that our elected representatives in Congress actually want to hold onto power any longer. What you have to understand about the political scene in modern America is that many politicians — especially Republicans — don’t actually want to be in power. They don’t crave power so much as they crave the prestige of holding elected office, and the many ways they can financially benefit from their position, both while they’re in office and once they leave. Many of them want to trade their elected office in for cushy jobs as lobbyists and consultants. Many of them, especially the younger ones, dream of nothing more than being podcasters. It’s a relative few who want power in order to actually use that power. For the rest, having power, being in the majority, is an inconvenience. Why would they actually want to fly the plane when they can sit in first class and drink Bloody Marys?

As John Thune demonstrated, Republicans are very comfortable complaining about Democrats. And as Thom Tillis demonstrated, Republicans have no problem berating the Trump administration and threatening to shut down his entire agenda. To this point, most of the achievements of the Republican Party in Washington have really just been achievements of the Trump Administration. Republicans have done the bare minimum, if even that. They passed the Big Beautiful Bill, and I guess we’re just supposed to be satisfied with that. We handed them control over the entire government; in return, we got one piece of legislation. That’s supposed to be good enough. Well, it isn’t. That is not going to be satisfactory. And for anyone who is willing to accept the “filibuster” excuse for Republicans, keep something in mind: Republicans will never have — and I mean never have — a filibuster-proof majority. It’s not going to happen. It’s only happened once this century, and that was for Democrats. Republicans are never going to have enough votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster. There is no path for it. It’s not going to happen. Republicans haven’t had one since the 1920s, and the country today doesn’t even vaguely resemble the country in the 1920s. So either they will barrel through, force their agenda through by eliminating the filibuster or doing a standing filibuster, or they will not advance their agenda at all. Not now. Not ever again. Those are your choices. Kill the modern filibuster, or never see an actual conservative piece of legislation passed ever again in your life. That’s it. Either we keep the current filibuster system alive, or Republicans carry out the will of the voters. We can’t have both.

Right now, hiding behind these excuses, Republicans have decided against the will of the voters. And unless that changes, and the SAVE Act becomes law, our elections will be permanently compromised — and then, filibuster or not, the will of the voters won’t matter at all.