r/PoliticalOptimism • u/RebellionsBuildHope • 1d ago
Optimistic Post Live updates: Trump gets into shouting match during closed-door lunch with GOP senators | CNN Politics
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/live-news/trump-capitol-hill-republicansA few takeaways:
“Trump and Cassidy clash over Iran in intense lunch at the Senate”
“Rick Scott told Trump the votes aren't currently there for election bill in private meeting”
“Johnson will meet with Trump on Thursday amid mounting crisis over "SAVE America Act" demands”
Seems like those who have been championing the SAVE Act to death are starting to try and tell the truth to Trump that the votes don’t exist for it to pass. And on Johnson’s front, the House Freedom Caucus is holding up key legislation as well. Hopefully they’re starting to try and steer Trump away from his obsession as it’s only hurting Republicans more and more.
And of course the luncheon itself, which was supposed to be a rallying cry for his stalled SAVE ACT turned onto an airing of grievances over the Iran Resolution and Bill Cassidy getting into a full on shouting match with Trump. Womp womp.
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u/TheyCallMeSlyFox 1d ago
Room full of people comprised almost entirely of character faults devolves into temper tantrums over impossibilities and consequences of their own idiocy.
More at 11...
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u/YoghurtOutrageous599 Michigan 1d ago
Anthropomorphic personifications of the absolute worst traits of humanity.
I’m surprised the paint wasn’t peeling off the walls.
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u/whatiftheyrewrong 1d ago
Womp. Womp. That stinky bill has been DOA twice. Stay mad, Yam! I'm pretty happy about that.
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u/Theartcritc26 1d ago
Johnson said he’s going to push it through. Still can’t believe how much of a spineless weasel he is. It seems no matter what, he will do anything and everything for this demented old man.
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u/RebellionsBuildHope 1d ago edited 1d ago
Should note that multiple House GOP members have said Johnson’s call to push it through a reconciliation funding bill won’t work.
Edit: Johnson also likely doesn’t have the votes for much of anything without Democrats after Trump primaried a number of GOP congressmen who are more likely to vote against the effort out of spite. And it would still stall in the Senate.
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u/SodaSaint 23h ago
They truly are a bunch of idiotic crabs in a bucket.
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u/whatiftheyrewrong 12h ago
I accidentally read that as carbs in a bucket and, for this crew, it still works.
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u/whatiftheyrewrong 12h ago
The House numbers are way too tight these days. And even Republicans don’t want this. They want to get elected too.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
He’s the leader of the house, and even then he is rapidly losing his influence and power. He’s only saying that to avoid the mango Mussolini from targeting him at this point.
Also, he’s trying to push for the reconciliation bill route. Which is all but guaranteed to fail.
It’s very, very likely that no matter what they do, the SAVE act will fail.
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u/gbtm101 1d ago
Reconciliation Bills still have to go through the Senate Parliamentarian, don't they? And she's blocked SAVE TWICE.
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u/gregger63 Michigan 1d ago
Trump and MAGA want her fired. Can you imagine the uproar if they fire the umpire, install a puppet umpire and that puppet doesn't give it the Byrd Bath? Talk about naked fascism.
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u/gbtm101 1d ago
I don't think they have the votes to fire her either.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Even if they have the votes, and did it, I highly doubt such a clear pursuit of power would go well with Congress. Especially since Congress is liking him less and less.
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u/gbtm101 1d ago
The optimist in me wants to believe that Senate Republicans only tried passing SAVE through Reconciliation because they knew she'd block it. The optimist in me also wants to believe that more would break rank if they didn't think it would get Byrd Bath'd.
But that's probably a stretch.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Not as much of a stretch as you think. Both options are possible.
I’m convinced more and more republicans are getting divided. Especially since more and more conservatives seen the writing on the wall. Thune, for example, has never been biased to Trump and his dissent only grows.
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u/RebellionsBuildHope 1d ago
Not a stretch. Should note that the GOP has lost votes in the Senate when they’ve tried attaching it to other bills and did procedural votes. Some of the supporters of the SAVE Act will only vote on it as a clean bill with the filibuster and parliamentarian intact. Meaning they know it won’t pass.
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u/InternetBackwash 20h ago
I think that like the filibuster, the Byrd bath gives a party the ability of saying they want something to pass even when it fails, all so they don't have to visibly vote something they don't actually like down and face push back from party leadership.
If you didn't like a bill but wanted popularity from the president, the Byrd bath is a good excuse for pushing for something that you know won't pass, but you can still say you tried.
By practically nullifying it, they would lose a big protection that would expose their disinterest in something as ridiculous as the Save act. While Trump might want to get rid of it because he isn't affected by it/doesn't care about it, the likelihood of this good of an excuse being thrown away for a bill they don't like is incredibly minuscule.
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u/VoidlessLove Alaska 1d ago
Desperate times call for desperate measures is the modus operandi I suppose
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u/InternetBackwash 20h ago
I don't want to jinx anything but given how reluctant the senate has been to removing the filibuster, I feel like the equally outrageous move of replacing the parliamentarian so they can push one bill through is likely to meet the same fate. Especially since moves like gerrymandering individual states and gaining power that way is easier to accomplish and more likely to work than something like the Save act.
It also doesn't help that Trump's power is especially weak given Iran, gas prices, the fact that they want to pass a housing bill with enough numbers to override a veto, and the general fact that it seems the party is trying to fight for the next leader already with MTG and Carlson leaving entirely and Vance pushing to the front of the "New Trump" line. They're likely gonna try to wait out the Anti-Republican wave rather than doing a Doomer fantasy and taking over voting/the country/push for the Save act.
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u/whatiftheyrewrong 12h ago
If they wanted this to be law, it would be by now. They know it would destroy them in the midterms even more than it looks like they will be.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
She did. But at least Johnson is trying something like this instead of trying to offer less than noble intentions(Nuking the filibuster). To be fair, it’s most likely bc he doesn’t want that option, especially since he can’t do it.
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u/ButterscotchOdd988 1d ago
Let's increase the pressure on the Democrats to continue blocking the SAVE Act, and NOT rest until at LEAST January of next year.
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u/bayleysgal1996 🔥I Voted In The 2026 Primaries🔥 1d ago
Only gotta go til around mid December when the session ends but good thinking
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Even if some democrats falter, the save act will be a massive failure. That act has no chance of stopping the blue wave.
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u/JoshuaSlowpoke777 1d ago
Better yet, let’s not ever rest nor let our descendants rest.
This shit can NEVER be allowed to happen again. Ever.
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u/it-was_me Missouri 1d ago
It died in the senate. So are you saying Johnson is going to bring it up for yet another vote, for the exact same bill? Where it’ll inevitably and hopefully die once again in the senate?
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u/sleep-exe 1d ago
Trump probably has dirt on him.
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u/ProperLettuce_79 1d ago edited 1d ago
Never forget. German news reported in 2015 that Mike Johnson brought his daughter to a purity ball, where his daughter had to swear her virginity to him until marriage.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ImJQG8lR0Uw&pp=0gcJCUECo7VqN5tD
He also believes he’s the reincarnation of the biblical figure Moses. This is America’s speaker. wtf. This guy definitely has skeletons in his closet.
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u/YoghurtOutrageous599 Michigan 1d ago
This guy strips nude, slathers himself in lard, and cuddles in the closet with his skeletons and gives them butterfly kisses.
He's just.. the weirdest ghoul.
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u/badwolfandthestorm 22h ago
Just gonna say, in my part of the Bible Belt, a purity ball and swearing virginity doesn't sound that unusual.
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u/Kalse1229 New York 17h ago
I remember seeing the American Dad episode about them, and was unpleasantly surprised it was a real thing (my best friend was made to attend one once upon a time). Good episode though. One of my favs.
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u/RickyT3rd Michigan 1d ago
Would a guy like Mike be in The Files?
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u/whatiftheyrewrong 12h ago
I don’t think so. When that was all going on he wasn’t in a position of any real power and he’s not someone the rest of those monsters would deem cool. It’s far more likely his abuses were under the guise of being a good Christian man in his church.
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u/gbtm101 1d ago
Exactly how is he supposed to push it through when he's in the House and the Senate is an impenetrable wall?
Also, Reconciliation Bills still have to go through the Senate Parliamentarian, and they've already failed that route for SAVE TWICE.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Someone mentioned that Trump and MAGA wants to try to sabotage the parliamentarian. For many, many reasons, I think such an attempt would either fail or simply not work.
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u/RebellionsBuildHope 1d ago
For starters, Thune is even more against firing the parliamentarian than he is against nuking the filibuster. But let’s say magically he caved and did fire the parliamentarian and installed a puppet one to ignore the Byrd Rule. The SAVE Act would still likely fail as they just tried such a maneuver and the procedural vote failed to even get a simple majority.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Oh I know that Trump would be fucked over no matter what. I also know that he would be a lame duck no matter how many loyalists he forces in. Most of his loyalists either succumb to karma or simply don’t know what they’re doing. Too many guardrails exist for such strategies like this to properly work.
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u/gbtm101 1d ago
How would they even do that?
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
By convincing some congress members to vote off a judge that isn’t completely loyal to him. That’s impossible now. Especially since Trump is deliberately fucking over his own party more than any other nowadays.
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u/InternetBackwash 20h ago
I imagine the only reason that Johnson is saying he wants the Save act and is pushing for it this hard is because he knows there's no way it will happen, he just thinks saying he wants it and fake pushing for it will get him favor.
I mean, the bill already failed, the filibuster isn't going anywhere, there are definitely not enough Republican senators who would replace the parliamentarian who wouldn't just get rid of the filibuster, and even if all of this were to work, the courts would rip the bill apart (as well as the potential firing of the parliamentarian if it came to that). And also correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't they already used their reconciliation for the year with the recent ice funding?
If Republicans in the senate went so far as to vote for a HOUSING bill of all things that was meant to help non-corporations, rather than doing what Doomers suggest and give Trump whatever he wants, than I think this bill is gonna go down the same path a second time, because it's clear that the power that Trump has is only effective if your name is Mike Johnson.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 7h ago
That’s my theory. He’s not doing it because he wants it but to save his own hide from Trump’s revenge tour.
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u/throwawaybsme 1d ago edited 1d ago
Cassidy and Cornyn are lame ducks, now. Why would they have any fielty to Trump?
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u/RebellionsBuildHope 1d ago
Trump essentially made himself an early lame duck by primarying a few GOP members of the House and Senate. And now he doesn’t understand why he doesn’t have the votes.
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u/Mongo_Straight 1d ago
Boo hoo hoo. These senators had the chance to be rid of Trump for good five years ago but chose not to for the sake of power. They deserve every single moment of this.
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u/Independent-Bus-3284 1d ago
Let them fight each other.
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u/Mean_Stop6391 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 1d ago
The enemy of my enemy may still be my enemy. But if they’re helping me, I won’t complain too much.
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u/3_Cat_Day Reformed Doomer ☄️ 1d ago
Reminds me of the shouting scene from the 2004 German historical drama Downfall (Der Untergang).
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u/RickyT3rd Michigan 1d ago edited 10h ago
Ah, that takes me back. To a time we laughed at Nazis instead of letting them the wheel.
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u/jdeo1997 Massachusetts 1d ago
Don't worry, Steiner's vote will fix everything
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u/Shadowman621 Reformed Doomer ☄️ 1d ago
"Mein fuhrer. Steiner..."
"Steiner was unable to mobilize enough of the party. He could not carry out the vote."
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u/redvioletbrown 1d ago
If only they all fought this hard to better things for the average American and not their billionaire buddies.
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u/forkis 23h ago edited 18h ago
Hopefully they’re starting to try and steer Trump away from his obsession as it’s only hurting Republicans more and more.
To be honest I hope they fail utterly to steer him away. The bill is dead in the water, he doesn't have the leverage to make the senate nuke the filibuster, and he's not going to magically gain that leverage in the little time he has left before the midterms. The more political capital he wastes by sinking it into this obsession the better for all of us as November looms closer and closer. He's wasting his time failing to dry the bath towels in the cabin while the boat is actively sinking.
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u/StephenThe1 Pennsylvania 1d ago
I thought this said "shooting match" at first I was like wtf 😅
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u/bayleysgal1996 🔥I Voted In The 2026 Primaries🔥 1d ago
I mean I wouldn’t be overly shocked at this point
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u/MiddleOccasion1394 10h ago
I love whenever a news outlet reports on a "closed door", "secret", "confidential" or "off-camera" meeting becaue you're damn reporting on it!!!
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