Thune will still attend<\/a> the two-day convention in Texas,<\/a> which this year is also hosting a key Senate race.<\/p>\n But unlike his House counterpart Speaker Mike Johnson, Thune will not address the crowd of Trump supporters attending the event.<\/p>\n His exclusion from the lineup follows months of battles<\/a> with the president, both over policy and campaign strategy. The president first flouted Thune\u2019s pleas early in March when the Senate leader urged him to endorse Sen. John Cornyn for re-election in Texas. Trump instead first endorsed both Cornyn and his eventual runoff opponent, Ken Paxton, then picked Paxton over Cornyn in the race\u2019s final weeks.<\/p>\n Since that first snub of Senate leadership, the president has spent the months that followed hammering Thune personally over the SAVE America Act,<\/a> which would establish voter ID requirements. He has demanded that Thune terminate the legislative filibuster while repeatedly (and publicly) bashing the Senate leader for supposedly standing in the way of voter ID other parts of his agenda.<\/p>\n Trump echoed those claims in an interview published Monday with Punchbowl News,<\/a> telling the outlet that if Thune didn\u2019t act quickly, Trump will be the \u201clast Republican president.\u201d<\/p>\n In the same interview, Trump declined to explicitly endorse Thune for another term as the leader of the GOP Senate caucus, telling Jake Sherman: \u201cI don\u2019t want to get into that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI get along with him. It\u2019s unfortunate that he doesn\u2019t have the votes,\u201d Trump said of Thune. \u201cI do have disagreements. I believe strongly in terminating the filibuster and \u2014 by the way \u2014 getting SAVE America Act approved immediately. And about 400 other things, in every hour of every day, boom, boom, boom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c[But] if they don\u2019t get smart, if they Senate doesn\u2019t get smart, I may be the last Republican president,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n The Senate leader has publicly sought to downplay any reports of his own private frustrations with the president, and appeared alongside Trump at a \u201cunity\u201d luncheon in the Senate in June.<\/p>\n But that meeting between Trump and the Senate\u2019s Republican caucus was reportedly tense<\/a>, with Sen. Bill Cassidy angrily clashing with Trump over the Iran war and the two sides coming away yet again without a path forward for the president\u2019s voter ID bill, which Democrats uniformly oppose.<\/p>\n In July, Thune and Trump once again clashed as the president demanded that Republicans cancel the August recess (on which the chamber remains currently). The president\u2019s reasoning was the same: He still wanted votes on the SAVE America Act and a termination of the filibuster, provoking a frustrated response <\/a>from the Senate leader.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could stay here \u2018til Christmas,\u201d said Thune. \u201cDemocrats aren’t voting for this, I\u2019m just telling you. And Republicans are not getting rid of the legislative filibuster.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking aim at then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after her own remarks at a briefing around the voter ID bill, Thune added: \u201cInstead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats. And if there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n The Washington Examiner reports that Thune will attend a fundraiser for Ken Paxton this week around the GOP convention, which the Texas Republican hopes will bring a wave of national Republican support for his possibly faltering Senate bid.<\/p>\n Thune stridently opposed Paxton during the primary on behalf of Cornyn, his close ally, and Thune-aligned PACs and the Senate GOP\u2019s campaign arm collectively spent tens of millions of dollars to both protect Cornyn and tear down his opponent\u2019s image.<\/p>\n While Thune\u2019s absence on the convention stage could signal a continued rift with Trump, his turn to support Paxton is a sign that he isn\u2019t giving up just yet on protecting a GOP Senate majority. Democrats need to pick up four seats to win control over the upper chamber in November.<\/p>\n![\"Thune](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2282587086...jpeg\")
Thune and Trump tried to project party unity at a luncheon in June, but the meeting with other Senate Republicans quickly turned tense (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n![\"Thune](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026-09-03T100013Z_249420166_RC2FMLA9DG56_RTRMADP_3_USA-ELECTION-DATA-CENTERS-REPUBLICANS.JPG\")
Thune will attend a fundraiser for Ken Paxton, whom he opposed in the Texas primary, during the GOP convention in Dallas (Reuters)<\/p>\n