Secret vote for Senate leader shows Washington isn't completely 'Trump-ified': columnist
North Dakota Sen. John Thune’s win as GOP Senate majority leader exposed the first cracks in Donald Trump’s "MAGA-verse" that became more fortified after his decisive election night victory, according to a longtime conservative columnist, who added that MAGA influencers "just don’t carry that much weight in the halls of the Senate."
“Not every established rule, custom and norm in Washington will be revoked as Trump returns to the Oval Office,” National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote Wednesday in an editorial for The Washington Post, where he suggested that Thune’s victory is an early indication that “not all of Washington is Trump-ified.”
Geraghty began to build his argument by telling readers that the MAGA-endorsed pick of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) by high-profile influencers and Trump loyalists like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk “didn’t work.”
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“With a secret ballot, plenty of senators didn’t fear the consequences of a vote for Thune or Cornyn, with Thune getting the nod,” Geraghty, National Review’s senior political correspondent, wrote. And in fact, Scott’s failure to secure the leadership role despite the online pressure campaign, Geraghty added, “is a small demonstration that not all of Washington or the GOP will be Trump-ified.”
“It appears that gentle favor-trading, relationship-building and collegiality are still the way to become leader of your party in the Senate,” he concluded in his editorial. Go figure. Effusive endorsements from the likes of Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson just don’t carry that much weight in the halls of the Senate.”