{"id":22707,"date":"2026-07-31T03:59:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22707"},"modified":"2026-07-31T03:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:59:18","slug":"wiles-tries-to-break-the-logjam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22707","title":{"rendered":"Wiles tries to break the logjam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/b4\/5a\/5f4fd89b4758bd4fed38c23660de\/trump-26-9.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Susie Wiles went to the Hill to break the Senate logjam.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans have not passed President Donald Trump\u2019s beloved SAVE America Act. They\u2019ve protected his nemesis, the Senate filibuster. A third budget package hasn&#8217;t moved. And two Senate Republicans are effectively blocking the confirmation of his attorney general pick.<\/p>\n<p>So Trump\u2019s chief of staff made a rare visit to Capitol Hill Wednesday to huddle privately with top Senate Republicans to unlock the president\u2019s agenda, amid brewing tensions between Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune and as the midterms loom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was her attempt to say to Thune and [Senate GOP Whip John] Barrasso [that] \u2018A lot is stalled in the Senate. SAVE\/reconciliation.. nominations.. what can we do?\u201d a person familiar with the private discussion said via text. The person, like others in this report, was granted anonymity to describe it.<\/p>\n<p>The conversations were described by a second person as \u201ccandid,\u201d but no breakthrough appeared imminent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThune basically said: I want to move the president\u2019s agenda whenever it has the votes,\u201d the first person said.<\/p>\n<p>Thune <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/30\/john-thune-trump-pressure-senate-01016783\" target=\"_blank\"><u>has repeatedly said<\/u><\/a> publicly that he doesn\u2019t have the votes to kill the filibuster or pass the SAVE America Act \u2014 the partisan elections bill Trump is pushing for.<\/p>\n<p>The account of Wiles&#8217; visit was confirmed by a third person familiar with the meeting. A fourth person familiar with the meeting said it was about reconciliation, the SAVE America Act and the filibuster, among other topics, adding that nominees were not a focus of the meeting. The person pointed to the Senate&#8217;s overwhelming record of approving the president&#8217;s picks, even as Todd Blanche&#8217;s nomination for attorney general hung in the balance Thursday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), one of the senators holding up Blanche\u2019s nomination, said he was told by Thune that the meeting was about the reconciliation bill, not Blanche.<\/p>\n<p>The second person added that Wiles and the GOP leaders also addressed the upcoming midterm elections, as well as \u201crelationship building\u201d between the White House and Senate Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>As Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/23\/trumps-patience-with-thune-is-running-out-01009902\" target=\"_blank\"><u>patience with Thune wears thin<\/u><\/a>, Wiles\u2019 visit to the Hill represented an effort to keep negotiations moving and prevent political fights from derailing the White House&#8217;s broader agenda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can&#8217;t show how high the importance of this issue is to the president other than bringing in Susie,\u201d a former Trump adviser said. \u201cIf there is an ability to land it, the president is certainly putting pressure on Susie to land it. It&#8217;s still an uphill battle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wiles exited Thune\u2019s office on Wednesday, alongside legislative affairs director James Braid. She declined to answer questions about the meeting as she left. She also met separately with Barrasso.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMembers of the Administration regularly meet with Congress to advance President Trump\u2019s agenda and key legislative priorities,\u201d a White House official said when asked about the purpose of the meetings.<\/p>\n<p>Wiles and Thune\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment and Barrasso\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>The outcome of the meetings likely won\u2019t be clear until next week, as the Senate tries to wrap up an ambitious agenda before leaving town for its August recess.<\/p>\n<p>People close to Wiles describe her as a strategist by nature, who won\u2019t let the perfect be the enemy of the possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the president remains focused on the one issue [the SAVE America Act] creating a major bottleneck, she will be instrumental in getting the rest of the administration\u2019s agenda moving again,\u201d said a person close with the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Wiles\u2019 visit came hours before Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) postponed Blanche\u2019s nomination to be Trump\u2019s top law enforcement chief. On Thursday, Trump announced he would shelve Blanche\u2019s nomination until next year when Cornyn and another Republican holdout, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), are out of office.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not the only piece of the president\u2019s agenda sitting in Senate purgatory. The House last week passed the latest budget framework to begin drafting a third reconciliation bill. The framework included $10 billion to incentivize states to adopt portions of the SAVE America Act, which is the president\u2019s No. 1 domestic priority.<\/p>\n<p>The effort faces long odds in the Senate because parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough previously ruled the SAVE America Act does not comply with Senate rules to include in a reconciliation package, which allows the Senate to move legislation with a simple majority rather than needing 60 votes.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susie Wiles went to the Hill to break the Senate logjam. Republicans have not passed President Donald Trump\u2019s beloved SAVE America Act. They\u2019ve protected his nemesis, the Senate filibuster. A third budget package hasn&#8217;t moved. And two Senate Republicans are effectively blocking the confirmation of his attorney general pick. So Trump\u2019s chief of staff made&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/b4\/5a\/5f4fd89b4758bd4fed38c23660de\/trump-26-9.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}