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Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, our Capitol Hill team explores how President Donald Trump’s insistence on pushing the SAVE America Act is causing friction with some Republican lawmakers. Plus, Kristen Welker examines how the Trump administration is struggling to find its messaging footing on Iran.
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— Adam Wollner
SAVE America Act tests Trump’s relationship with Republicans in Congress
By Sahil Kapur, Melanie Zanona, Brennan Leach and Frank Thorp V
The SAVE America Act is testing the relationship between President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who is seeking to balance the demands of the president and passions of the GOP base with the unforgiving realities of the Senate.
“Next week I will be bringing the SAVE America Act to the floor, and we’ll be having a full and robust debate,” Thune said yesterday on the Senate floor. “I can’t guarantee an outcome on this legislation. I can guarantee you that we are going to put Democrats on the record, that they will be forced to defend their outrageous positions on these issues.”
Early next week, Thune plans to bring up the House-passed version, which was structured as a “message” to allow the Senate to begin debate with 51 votes. A GOP leadership aide said the Senate will engage in days of extended debate on the bill, giving senators ample chance to speak on it and force Democrats to defend their opposition, while considering amendments sought by Republicans. The process could extend into the following weekend and beyond, the aide added.
But in the end, it will take 60 votes to cut off debate. As a result, some Republicans say it has no viable path to Trump’s desk.
“There isn’t any strategy,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters. “There’s a 0% [chance] of this succeeding.”
“People on my side of the aisle — and people at the far right of the political spectrum — are trying to swing for the fences, and they’re not going to succeed,” said Tillis, while adding that he supports the legislation on the merits. “And we’re not going to have more states with more voter ID, which is what I want. In the process, we are setting up vulnerable Republicans for a more difficult environment than they already have.”
Some Republicans are frustrated that Trump is so fixated on an election bill that won’t pass and wish he’d put the same amount of political capital into moving bills to lower the cost of living ahead of the midterm elections, when their majorities in Congress are on the line.
“This is frustrating, but it’s also a regular occurrence,” one House Republican in a competitive re-election race told NBC News, speaking freely about frustrations with their own party on the condition of anonymity. “Congress just needs to keep moving forward with bills like the housing one and others that help with affordability.”
Trump struggles to land on a clear message for the Iran war
Analysis by Kristen Welker
Almost two weeks into the Iran war, the Trump administration has yet to land on a clear message for its goals in the conflict or for concerns over rising gas prices.
In the same breath this week, President Donald Trump declared “we won” and warned “we don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.” Two days earlier, he told House Republicans: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough.”
The mixed messaging doesn’t stop there. The president and his top officials continue to give a range of reasons for what the ultimate goals of the war are, and whether regime change is one of them. And as Americans continue to make clear that cost of living is a top concern, Trump is downplaying rising gas prices after months of pointing to lower gas prices as proof he’s leading an economic turnaround.
Democrats and Republicans tell me the president needs to do a better job of explaining the military objectives to the American public, which polls show is skeptical.
Our recent NBC News poll found that 54% of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran. And this week’s Washington Post poll found that about two-thirds of Americans believe the administration has not clearly defined its military goals in Iran.
Presidents usually spend significant amounts of time making the case to the public for war before beginning one, to prepare them for the consequences, including the loss of American lives and economic uncertainty.
That strategy has paid dividends before. A look back at our NBC News poll archives from early 2002 to early 2003 found that clear majorities of Americans backed taking military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power and approved of President George W. Bush’s approach to the war on terrorism.
In both cases, public sentiment ultimately soured. But the Bush administration started from a level of support much higher than what the Trump administration has now.
Early polling shows that Trump’s most ardent supporters, Republicans who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement, are almost unilaterally behind him. But independent voters are not, and more establishment-minded Republicans don’t share nearly the same level of enthusiasm as MAGA Republicans.
The military challenges facing the administration in the Middle East are clear, but so are the messaging challenges here at home.
We’ll discuss all this and more on “Meet the Press” this Sunday, when I’ll interview Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
Follow live Iran war updates →
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
- 🛢️Colliding conflicts: The U.S. has temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil, a boost to the Kremlin as Washington tries to contain energy prices sent soaring by the Iran war. Read more →
- 🏛️ On the Hill: Congressional Republicans have increasingly expressed anti-Muslim sentiment in the wake of the Iran war, with several far-right lawmakers posting Islamophobic statements on social media this week, following recent violent attacks on U.S. soil. Read more →
- 🏦 Fed fight: A federal judge said he was blocking subpoenas that the Justice Department served to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a probe purported to be about the management of the central bank’s renovation. Read more →
- ↘️ Slowing down: The U.S. economy advanced at a sluggish 0.7% annual rate from October through December, the Commerce Department reported, in a big downgrade of its initial estimate. Read more →
- 🇨🇺 Cuba update: Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed talks between the U.S. and Cuba during a speech today, the first time Havana has publicly acknowledged the meetings. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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