Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today we're going to talk about Trump being told no by the GOP in the Senate.

With Senator Mitch McConnell leaving, there was a leadership vacuum within the Republican

party in the Senate.

The position of Senate Majority Leader was up for grabs. There were three people

seeking it, Senator John Cornyn, Senator Rick Scott, and Senator John Thune. Scott is the most closely

aligned with Trump. That's not who the Senate chose, though. They chose Senator John Thune. Thune is definitely

more of a McConnell Republican than a Trump Republican. His selection was made by secret ballot,

making it hard for Trump to influence them. One of Thune's first acts was to publicly push back on Trump's weird request for recess

appointments. Trump demanded that whoever became Senate majority leader allow him to use recess appointments

that would bypass the normal confirmation process. He said, quote, any Republican senator seeking the

coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments in the

Senate, without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.

Shortly after getting the top leadership position, Thune was asked about it.

He said, quote, well, what we are going to do is make sure that we are processing his nominees

in a way that gets them into those positions

so they can implement his agenda. How that happens remains to be seen. Obviously, we want to make

sure our committees have confirmation hearings, like they typically do, and these nominees reported out to the floor.

But I've said this and I mean it, we expect a level of cooperation from the Democrat to work

with us to get these folks installed. Thune also immediately shot down the idea of ending the filibuster.

For those who might want to read too much into this, sure, it's a win.

It helps establish a baseline of what Thune will and won't readily agree to when it comes to Trump's bizarre demands.

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