John Cornyn’s filibuster flip: From the Politics Desk

This is the online version of From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.

In today’s edition, our Capitol Hill team reports on Sen. John Cornyn’s change of heart on the filibuster as he stares down a runoff for his seat. Plus, Andrea Mitchell dives into a big potential unintended consequence of the Iran war.

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— Adam Wollner

Sen. John Cornyn flips on the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act as Trump weighs endorsement

By Frank Thorp V, Sahil Kapur and Brennan Leach

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, reversed himself on the Senate filibuster today after years of unflinching support for the 60-vote threshold to pass most bills.

Now, locked in a competitive Republican primary runoff for his Senate seat and eyeing President Donald Trump‘s endorsement, Cornyn says he’ll support “whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary” to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul bill that Trump has called his No. 1 priority.

Cornyn’s comments are part of an op-ed he wrote in the New York Post, headlined: “Why the SAVE Act matters more than the filibuster.”

Cornyn has supported the bill, but his GOP opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has aligned with Trump in calling for abolition of the filibuster to pass it.

NBC News reported yesterday that Trump had seemed ready to endorse Cornyn in the race just one week ago, but that the president’s decision is now in “a holding pattern” as he emphasizes that Congress must do everything in its power to pass the SAVE America Act.

Cornyn denied that he shifted his position on the filibuster to win Trump’s endorsement, telling NBC News: “I would say that’s not true.”

He also said it’s something he’s “been thinking about for a long time.”

“Hopefully the president likes what he sees, but this has really been sort of an evolution in my own thinking,” Cornyn said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has repeatedly said that there are not enough votes in the Senate to undo the filibuster or pass the bill.

“Sen. Cornyn is one of 53 Republican senators, and the opposition to nuking the filibuster runs very, very deep in our conference, I think, as you know,” he said today.

Thune told reporters that he will bring the SAVE America Act to the floor but that Democrats will vote it down. “I can guarantee the debate. I can guarantee a vote,” he said a day earlier. “I just can’t guarantee an outcome.”

Read more →

How Putin could be an unintended winner of the Iran war

Analysis by Andrea Mitchell

Russian President Vladimir Putin is already looking like the unintended winner in the war against Iran, as soaring energy prices and U.S. waivers on sanctioned Russian oil replenish his country’s depleted finances.

Having regained access to other markets, Putin even goaded European neighbors who stopped buying his oil and natural gas in comments to a Russian state television reporter.

It’s an unwelcome reversal of fortunes for Ukraine’s European allies who’d been predicting that Russia’s wartime economy was near collapse, raising their hopes that Ukraine could battle Putin’s larger military to a draw.

Despite U.S. and Israeli forces quickly gaining control of Iran’s airspace, Iran has shown more resilience against the aerial onslaught than many experts had anticipated. Tehran’s decision to strike its Arab neighbors, drawing them into the conflict and widening it to the entire Gulf region, was initially viewed by many as a strategic error. But it’s helped Iran trigger a global energy crisis, hitting the U.S. and the rest of the world where they are most vulnerable: their economies.

Without evidence that Iran had mined the Strait of Hormuz, even its threat to target commercial ships in the narrow passageway brought tanker traffic to a halt, immediately denying the global market 20% of its usual oil supply. The energy prices have been more volatile than at any time in recent market history, according to The Wall Street Journal. And with Iran controlling the Strait, it is able to export more oil than before the war.

With markets already edgy on Monday, oil prices shot up from around $80 per barrel to $120. The stock market plummeted. Less than an hour before the stock market closed, President Donald Trump told reporters the war would end “soon.” Oil prices plunged, and stocks recovered. Two hours later, the president sent mixed signals about the war’s timeline, saying it would be a “short excursion.” Moments later, he added “we could still go further and we’re going to go further.”

Higher oil prices have been a lifeline for Putin. One of the first steps the administration took to cushion the war’s effect on prices was to grant Russia a waiver to resume selling oil to India. Just before the war, the U.S. had threatened India with tariffs unless it stopped buying Russian oil. The White House said the Treasury Department is considering moves on other sanctions as well.

One likely legislative casualty: a long-stalled Senate bill with 85 sponsors to punish Putin by imposing tariffs on countries that buy Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports is again stalled. Only last month, before the war, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., promised his colleagues it would be voted on by April, and that Trump had committed to sign it.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in The Washington Post: “Russia is not a bystander in this crisis. It is helping Iran challenge the United States.” Citing reports accusing Russia of sharing intelligence to help Iran target U.S. and allied assets, she said, “it is hard to escape the conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence agencies had a hand in planning these strikes.”

As the war against Iran helps Russia restore its fortunes, there is a downside for Ukraine and its European allies. U.S.’s prized air defense and other weapons systems that European diplomats say have been on back order for them, many to defend Ukraine, are instead being deployed to the Middle East. It’s another consequence of a war with multiple goals and no clear endgame.

More on the Iran war:

• Outdated intel likely led to deadly U.S. strike on Iranian elementary school, sources say, by Gordon Lubold, Dan De Luce, Julie Tsirkin, Courtney Kube and Nick Duffy
• U.S. military is using AI to help plan Iran air attacks, sources say, as lawmakers call for oversight, by Dan De Luce, Gordon Lubold, Kevin Collier and Jared Perlo
• Dozens of countries agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil. But it didn’t bring down prices, by Steve KopackTrump’s war on Iran creates an economic storm for consumers and the Fed, by Allie Canal
• Speaker Mike Johnson says he doesn’t support nation-building in Iran, by Scott Wong and Kyle Stewart
• Joe Rogan says many Trump supporters feel ‘betrayed’ by Iran war, by Alexandra Marquez
• Follow live updates →

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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