Mace says Thune is a ‘thorn in the side’ of GOP

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said Sunday that Senate Majority leader John Thune has become a “thorn in the side” of her party, after House GOP leadership rejected a Senate-passed bill to fund the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“We’re not the problem. It’s the left that’s a problem,” Mace said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to her conference. 

“And now Senator Thune has become a problem and a thorn in the side of the Republican Party. And it’s become a national problem,” she added.

Early Friday morning, the Senate passed a deal via unanimous consent to fund DHS sans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol. At the time of the voice vote, only a few senators remained on the floor, with the upper chamber then breaking for a two-week recess.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) slammed the measure, which included funding for Customs and Border Protection and would have immediately funded the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard. It also would have required Congress to fund ICE and border enforcement operations at a later date.

“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson said on Friday. “I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill.”

Mace backed Johnson on Sunday, saying, “We’re all very supportive” of the Louisiana Republican as speaker. 

President Trump also told Fox News on Friday that the Senate-backed bill “wasn’t appropriate” and called on Republicans in the upper chamber to terminate the filibuster to muscle DHS legislation through without Democratic support. 

Later Friday, the lower chamber passed a two-month stopgap measure to fund the entirety of DHS. However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed before it even passed that such a proposal was “dead on arrival” in the Senate.

Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), meanwhile, blamed House Republicans for the standoff during “State of the Union.”

“We didn’t get everything we wanted either,” he said of the Senate-backed deal. “That’s how compromise works. That’s how deals work in Congress. House Republicans are the only thing standing in the way of ending this airport chaos right now.”

Mace, seated next to her colleague, replied, “That’s just not true.”

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