President Trump berated a quartet of GOP senators Wednesday for undermining his leverage with Iran, while making an appeal to them and the broader Republican conference to do whatever it takes to pass the SAVE America Act.
The president’s approach to his lunch meeting with Senate Republicans at the Capitol did not resolve any of the party’s internal disputes.
It may have even exacerbated tension in some corners of the conference after Mr. Trump ignited a shouting match with Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who lost his primary last month after the president endorsed against him, over his support for a war powers resolution to end hostilities with Iran.
“If someone tries to bully me … I ain’t going to put up with that,” Mr. Cassidy told reporters after the meeting.
Mr. Trump’s blunt approach was expected, but the move he made a few hours before the lunch to cancel a bill-signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing affordability package was not.
The president announced on social media Wednesday morning that he was scrapping plans to sign the housing bill “until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE America Act, which I consider to be a National Emergency.”
The fate of the housing bill was not addressed in the meeting. But House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican who spoke with the president earlier Wednesday, said he expects Mr. Trump to sign the housing bill within the 10-day window the Constitution allows for signing or vetoing legislation.
The House-passed SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot. Mr. Trump wants to add a ban on universal mail-in voting and provisions cracking down on pro-transgender policies.
Several Senate Republicans had planned to use the meeting to push Mr. Trump to accept that there are not enough votes to pass that bill, and urge him to focus instead on affordability issues like the housing bill that Republicans can campaign on in the upcoming midterm elections.
Whether they realized after Mr. Trump’s move to cancel the bill signing that he will not be swayed or they wanted to avoid the wrath the president unleashed on Mr. Cassidy, ultimately no Republican pressed that point in the meeting.
“We’ve made it clear multiple times that if the SAVE Act requires nuking the filibuster, it’s simply not going to happen,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican. “And that’s been obvious long before today.”
The president still has allies in the Senate who want to continue the fight.
Sen. Rick Scott, who invited Mr. Trump to the Capitol as chair of the Republican Steering Committee that hosts the Wednesday lunch, said his goal was to get the party on the same page about what is needed to win in November.
“Part of that is we got to get the SAVE America Act passed,” the Florida Republican said.
Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee, lead author of the SAVE American Act, said he was pleased Mr. Trump endorsed his idea to use the talking filibuster to get around the 60-vote requirement for cutting off debate.
Republican leaders have dismissed the talking filibuster as unworkable because it gives Democrats unprecedented control to force procedural and substantive votes to undermine the legislation.
Mr. Lee does not see that as a reason not to try.
“We’ve got the ability to withstand the siren call to chase after a squirrel in the middle of a debate on legislation that we decide we need passed,” he said.
While passing the SAVE America Act was the president’s closing message in the lunch, he spent the bulk of the meeting talking about his administration’s peace negotiations with Iran and laying into the four GOP senators he said voted to undermine him.
The Senate approved a war powers resolution on Wednesday directing the president to end hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorizes the use of military force.
Mr. Cassidy was one four Republicans who helped Democrats pass the measure, along with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
When Mr. Trump asked during the meeting why anyone would vote for the war powers resolution, Mr. Cassidy asked if it was a rhetorical question or if he would really like to know. The president welcomed an answer, so the senator gave him one.
“I stood and said, ‘You have not told the American people what’s going on. It was supposed to last four weeks; it’s lasted four months. Our original objectives have not been achieved, and I want to know what’s going on,’” Mr. Cassidy said. “I can’t tell you that’s verbatim, because obviously I was speaking.”
The senator said Mr. Trump “did not particularly care” for that assessment and raised his voice in response.
“I lost my temper. That’s not appropriate. It’s the Irish in me,” Mr Cassidy said. “But I matched his tone and his volume, and it went back and forth.”
Some of his colleagues urged Mr. Cassidy to sit down and de-escalate the situation, so he did. Still, the senator said he does not regret speaking out.
“I make no apologies for standing up to the president, if you will, trying to demand that more information be shared with the Senate, and more information be shared with the American people,” he said.
Mr. Trump, in brief remarks to reporters before the meeting, tried to paint a rosy picture about the conflict with Iran.
“The war is going very well,” he said. “As you know, we’re winning by a lot. Iran is making very big concessions. We’ll see what happens, but it’s been very, very, very powerful. It’s going very, very well.”
Outside of Mr. Cassidy recounting his exchange, which was leaked by someone in the room in real time, few senators wanted to discuss the meeting.
Several offered sarcastic remarks about the confab.
“Lots of Republican love on Republicans,” Mr. Paul said.
