By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Mike Lee, Trump’s Senate wingman on election conspiracy theories.
Throughout 2026, Donald Trump has been waging a battle with Republican Senate leaders over their legislative priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to signal to midterms voters that the GOP cares about affordability, though Trump’s policies have in many ways exacerbated cost-of-living concerns. The president, on the other hand, has made no bones about his conviction that Congress should put aside absolutely everything on its plate in order to enact the SAVE America Act, a piece of signature MAGA legislation wrapped in Trump-dictated poison pills.
