WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will lunch Wednesday with Senate Republicans who’ve refused to fund his ballroom, balked at his election reform demands and harshly criticized his unqualified choice for spy chief. It’s possible the meeting will be contentious. It’s also possible that Trump will simply eat their lunch. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the most vocal critics of the White House among Republicans on Capitol Hill, said he has no plans to criticize the president to his face. “The last thing we want to do is have an encounter on Capitol Hill to be one of discord,” Tillis told HuffPost. “We should be talking about all the good things that have happened in this Congress.”The meeting’s likely peaceful tone shows how, despite the talk of a growing “YOLO Caucus” of Senate Republicans willing to break with Trump ― a group including Tillis and Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana ― most of the GOP is not willing to rock the boat in any way that could hurt the party’s electoral prospects. There’s been widespread opposition among Senate Republicans to some of Trump’s recent decisions, including his creation of a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to pay off Jan. 6 rioters and his selection of loyalist Bill Pulte as a temporary director of national intelligence. Tillis, for example, called Pulte an “incompetent sycophant” on Tuesday and described the weaponization fund as “a payout pot for punks.” But earlier this month, he backed down from a threat to vote against priority legislation if it didn’t outlaw the slush fund. Several senators said they expected the meeting to be friendly. “I think it’ll be very pleasant. I think it’ll be people celebrating, you know, big legislative victories,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told HuffPost. “I could be wrong, I just have never been in a meeting with him with a big group of senators where it’s been contentious or confrontational.”(Of course, it could be that if Republican senators did plan to challenge the president on his recent actions, they would not want to forewarn the president by telling reporters about it.) In recent weeks, Trump has seemingly sought to deliberately skewer Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). He announced Pulte’s appointment just as the Senate moved to reauthorize a controversial spy law, derailing the legislation. Republicans urged him to name a permanent replacement for outgoing intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard, and they were thrilled when he nominated Jay Clayton, a federal prosecutor. But just as Republicans rushed to install Clayton, Trump directed him not to appear at his confirmation hearing.At the same time, “to add a slight bit of intrigue,” as Trump put it, he demanded that any extension of the spy law also include the SAVE America Act, a bill to require proof-of-citizenship for voter registration and photo identification for voting. The Senate has already voted on a version of the legislation twice and has not come close to the 60-vote threshold needed to pass it. Thune has repeatedly said there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to approve the voting law or to change Senate rules so there’s no filibuster, and it only takes 50 votes to pass legislation. He said this week he hoped his colleagues would back him up at lunch. “I hope that people, on that issue, speak up,” Thune told Punchbowl News. “Because I’m not saying anything that isn’t a view that wouldn’t be shared or articulated by a lot of my colleagues… It’s always helpful if others would speak up, and it’s not just me.”Trump was invited to lunch not by Thune, but by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who ran for majority leader against Thune in 2024. Asked about what would come up at the meeting, Scott said the election bill. “The voters still want the Save America Act,” Scott told reporters. “What’s our plan?”Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told HuffPost he expected the president to push for the voting reforms even though it’s clear there aren’t enough votes for it. “I think we’ll get a good talking to,” Rounds said. RelatedRepublican Partysenate