Vance: ‘It’s not my business’ to endorse Thune for another term as Senate leader

Vice President JD Vance declined to endorse Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) should the Republican Party keep control of the Senate after November’s elections.President Donald Trump has feuded with Thune over the Senate’s refusal to pass the SAVE America Act, an election integrity bill, before the midterm elections. Trump also declined to support Thune as the next Senate leader, previously telling reporters that “we’re going to find out.”Vance echoed a similar sentiment on Thursday afternoon. “It’s just not my business,” Vance told reporters during a White House press briefing. “It’s the business of Republican senators to determine who their next leader will be.”Vance went on to speak highly of Thune, who is widely liked by his fellow Republican lawmakers in the Senate.“I will say about John Thune that we have a very good relationship,” said Vance. “He has a very good relationship with the president of the United States. That doesn’t mean you don’t disagree with people from time to time or have a preference or a priority that’s going to be different from the Senate majority leader.”Republicans are facing heavy headwinds to keep control of the House against Democrats. Thune has begun to raise the specter that the Senate could also be in jeopardy.“I worry about that, for sure,” Thune said in a Tuesday interview with South Dakota outlet Keloland News.Despite Republican campaign arms vastly out-raising their Democratic counterparts, individual Democratic candidates in battleground Senate races have a sizable cash advantage over their Republican competitors.JD VANCE DEFENDS FRIENDSHIP WITH TUCKER CARLSON AS PRESSURE TO CONDEMN ANTISEMITISM GROWSVance reiterated that his commitment is to helping the GOP keep both chambers under its control, not wading into intraparty leadership battles.“It’s really not my business weeks, months before a Senate election, to talk about who should be the next Republican majority leader,” he told reporters. “I suspect John Thune will run again. I suspect that he’ll get the support of a lot of his colleagues. But I would defer to those folks about who their next leader is going to be. The most important thing, and I think John Thune would agree with this — I know the president agrees with this — is we got to keep the Republican Senate majority.”