Inside Senate GOP’s tense post-election reckoning as Thune clashes with Republican critics

Senate Republicans huddled for hours on end to define their remaining time in power and determine if the leadership they had backed so far was the right choice moving forward into a new era in Washington, D.C.

Some closed-door meetings over the last nearly two years Republicans have controlled the Senate have been animated, with policy pitches devolving into shouting matches — President Donald Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., infamously sparred over the Iran war earlier this year.

This confab, their first since Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats roared back into the majority, was different. In part, it was meant to develop a plan that would carry them through the final weeks of this year — that was agreed upon during the meeting, but not without its own drama after the fact on who could lay claim to the GOP’s 54-day blitz.

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It was also a test to see if Republicans wanted to keep Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., as their leader, or delay until a challenger appeared.

But Republicans pushing for a delay acknowledged part of the problem: Who would want the job?

“I got the job because nobody else wants it,” Thune told Fox News Digital after the dust settled in the Old Senate Chamber.

And he did, along with much of the same leadership team that Senate Republicans elected when they won the majority two years ago, by acclamation, meaning no lawmaker objected to their leadership slate.

Some told Fox News Digital it was like “Festivus,” the holiday etched into Gen-Xers’ brains from “Seinfeld” known for its airing of grievances. Others described it as a frank, needed debrief as the GOP picks through the debris of Election Night.

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“It really was, to be honest with you, as profound as the loss was last week. I would have expected more emotions, which I consider to be a good sign,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital. “But I think it’s almost — It’s self-governing because nobody can dispute that it’s a problem.”

“Now it’s not like you’re looking for the silver lining,” he continued. “It doesn’t exist. It is what it is, and you’ve got to react.”

But there were some “testy” moments, particularly between Thune and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the driving force behind the push to delay leadership elections.

For Thune, the main question was what anyone else in the Senate GOP would have done differently in his shoes.

“I just think that you come through an election like this and everybody’s looking for scapegoats and there’s a lot of blame casting that goes on, and I just wanted to get up and basically defend what we had done and accomplished,” Thune said.

“And I think the operative question is, tell me what you would do differently? Both on the political side and the legislative side. So we had a good, we had a robust conversation, and it does. It always gets a little bit testy in the back and forth, but I thought that, by and large, the discussion was very candid, and certainly gave everybody an opportunity to be heard.”

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Johnson acknowledged that he was “prone to interrupting, I’m rude that way,” and told Fox News Digital that he was sure Thune was “not happy that I did that,” but assured that there was no “animus” between the two.

“In politics, everything has to be so black and white, and, unfortunately, for our base, the way to really rev them up is inter-conference fighting, which is not helpful,” Johnson said.

“So, again, I didn’t really like doing this, but it had to be done,” he continued. “I mean, we had to, and in the end, I think, resulted in a very, very good conversation and pretty well revealed we’re just lucky to have anybody who wants those jobs.”

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital that Thune showed “moments of exceptional leadership” in the heat of the meeting.

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He noted that the top Republican’s rebuttal reminded lawmakers of the “ebb and flow of the politics in our country,” dating back to 1986, when former President Ronald Reagan, then entering his final midterm election similar to Trump, lost eight seats in the upper chamber.

“Obama lost nine Senate seats in 2014, it looks like we’re going to lose eight, depending on what happens in Alaska,” Daines said. “So it’s within the kind of the historic norms of going back and forth.”

“And the leader forcefully laid that out and then talked about what he needed to do going forward to unify and eventually reclaim the majority,” he continued.