I sat down with Ben Jacobs for a POLITICO Magazine interview on the Senate leadership battle, the looming influence of Trump, and what the landscape might look like in the post-McConnell era.
The future of Donald Trump’s second term in office will be shaped inside a closed room in the United States Senate on Wednesday. There, on a secret ballot, Republican senators will choose Mitch McConnell’s replacement and begin a new era for the Senate GOP.
In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Liam Donovan, a former GOP political operative and lobbyist who’s a close observer of Capitol Hill, laid out the political landmines facing the candidates to be the next Senate majority leader and the sway that Trump holds — or doesn’t hold — in the contest.
There are three contenders: John Thune of South Dakota, the current Republican whip; John Cornyn of Texas, his predecessor as Republican whip; and Rick Scott of Florida, a longtime McConnell critic who is running as an outsider.
The MAGA crowd has rallied behind Scott, but Trump himself has shied away from an endorsement. Instead, Trump has issued demands on Truth Social for candidates to allow him to make recess appointments to fill vacancies, to which the leadership candidates quickly responded with varying degrees of support.
It’s a reminder that regardless of who wins, there will be some break with McConnell.
“I do think there is enough desire to change how the chamber operates that you have to indulge some of the demands,” Donovan said, “both from the rank and file, but also some of the things that the president is talking about.”
Read the full Q&A here.
