A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For a perspective on the tensions between Senate Republicans and the president, we called GOP strategist Alex Conant. He has led communications efforts for several U.S. presidential and U.S. Senate campaigns. He's now a partner at the communications consulting firm Firehouse Strategies. Alex, so Todd Blanche announced to rescind the anti-weaponization fund. What does that deal indicate to you?
ALEX CONANT: I mean, it indicates to me that the White House, the administration, really wants to get him confirmed. They don't want to go into recess with him not confirmed because I think he loses all momentum then and the president potentially has to nominate somebody else to be the attorney general. It'd be a big political loss for the administration at this point. So I think they're trying to make a deal. They're trying to show in good faith that this weaponization fund is not going to go forward, given how vociferously Senator Cornyn has argued against it. But I don't think his nomination is a done deal yet by any means.
MARTÍNEZ: Why not? I know that Cornyn reached that deal with the DOJ that that'll get his vote, and Thom Tillis has said he'd follow Cornyn's lead on this. So why wouldn't it be a done deal?
CONANT: Well, you have to get a majority on the Senate floor. I'm not completely convinced that all the other Republican senators that aren't on the committee are going to follow his lead. But I think the next 24 hours are going to be critical as senators start waking up this morning and reading the details about this deal that Senator Cornyn struck. If we see more of them endorsing, obviously that would give them some momentum, and they could get him confirmed this week.
MARTÍNEZ: And just to be clear, Cornyn and Tillis are both on the way out. Is that pretty much the reason why they could stand up to Trump in this way?
CONANT: It certainly gives them (laughter) a little bit of an incentive to do so. I mean, they're both on the way out because of President Trump. Neither of them were big Trump fans. They voted with his agenda almost 100% of the time, but Trump really didn't like them personally, argued and supported their challengers, or, in Tillis' case, said he would potentially support one of his challengers in a primary. And so the reason they're not coming back is because of Trump.
And now they're called the YOLO senators - you only live once - because they figure they might as well, you know, take their pound of flesh before they leave and stand up to Trump when they might not agree with him on issues like this one. But the rest of the Republican conference, having seen what happened to Cornyn and Tillis and the - and Senator Cassidy in Louisiana as well - having seen that, they're more in line with Trump than they've ever been.
MARTÍNEZ: Because I was wondering if this could be considered a victory for Senate Republicans, but it sounds like maybe not really.
CONANT: Not really. I mean, I - look, as the report just said, it doesn't sound like this letter has too much teeth in it. We'll see if it's enough to appease the rest of the Senate Republicans. But I think this is a pretty small issue in the grand context of things.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. Now, another item on this week's to-do list is the passing of late Senator Lindsey Graham's Russia sanctions bill. That's a measure to penalize anyone who buys goods like oil and natural gas from Russia. Now, some Senate Democrats say the legislation hands too much authority to the administration. Do you foresee any progress on this front?
CONANT: I do, actually. Look, well over 80 senators - Republicans and Democrats - are cosponsoring this legislation. You know, it's something that Russia hawks - people who think we need to be doing everything we can to support Ukraine - have been pushing for for years. That's why Senator Graham was a big champion of it, and his untimely death breathed a lot of momentum into it, got the White House to endorse the bill. Yes, there are a handful of Democrats that are opposing it, which is really ironic because traditionally we've seen the divisions on Ukraine amongst the Republicans, not the Democrats, but we've seen a couple of Democrats opposing it now. But I do think, just given the widespread support of this legislation, it should pass and it should pass this week.
You know, when you only have a dozen or so Democrats opposing a bill, they can't stop it. They can just slow it down. And so here you're running into an issue where you have the August recess coming up at the end of this week. The question is, are Democrats really going to drag down the rest of the agenda over this legislation or will the big majority of senators be able to push it through? My expectation is that they'll push it through, which will be a big loss for Putin.
MARTÍNEZ: One more thing to ask about - President Trump's SAVE America Act. That's the bill that would heighten requirements for Americans to register and vote. Any room for compromise in the GOP on that one?
CONANT: Probably not. There's a lot of Republican senators that have varying degrees of concern about that piece of legislation - a lot of it having to do with federalism - and they're thinking that we should leave the - leave elections to the states. Given how long we've been fighting about this - it's basically all year now - and how hard President Trump's been pushing for it, it seems very unlikely that it'll become law.
MARTÍNEZ: Alex Conant is a veteran Republican strategist. Alex, thanks a lot for your thoughts on this.
CONANT: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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