Senate Democrats lament missed chance after tariff vote tumult

Senate Democrats are trying to pick up the pieces after Republicans were able to kill off an attempt to scrap President Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs because of attendance issues, depriving them of a rare opportunity to make a dent in the GOP's trade efforts.

Democrats were on the verge of a second tariff-related win on the Senate floor in a matter of weeks, only to see those hopes scuttled due to absences. The episode has left some in the caucus lamenting a missed opportunity, especially at a time when the party has little leverage or ability to throw its weight around in the chamber. 

“I’d prefer to win it,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said curtly. 

Some Democrats are also pointing the finger at the leadership for mishandling the vote. 

The party needed all of its members in town for the vote in order for it to pass, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was in South Korea for a conference, putting them a vote down. Leadership knew about his trip for weeks ahead of time. 

On top of Whitehouse’s travel, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had voted in favor of a similar bill reversing tariffs on Canada earlier this month, was sick on Wednesday and missed votes.

That left the vote at a 49-49 deadlock — and left some in the party upset that leadership hadn’t accounted for the absences.

“They negotiated when they knew that Whitehouse couldn’t be here,” one source familiar with party deliberations said. The source conceded it would have been a different situation had McConnell been able to vote, but said Democrats shouldn’t have counted on it.

“You don’t count on the other side to save your bacon,” the source continued. “You make sure you got all your votes. That’s the maximum we can do. We can’t win it by ourselves. We’ve got to get all of our soldiers lined up.”

Democratic leaders on Thursday defended their handling of the failed vote.

“I don’t think anything went wrong. We just needed more votes,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said. “We weren’t sure how the votes would come down, but we knew there would be absences.” 

Attendance questions started to percolate after Whitehouse and McConnell both missed Wednesday morning’s votes. Durbin, however, downplayed questions about absences giving Democrats trouble, telling reporters hours before the vote that he didn’t “have any indication otherwise” that there would be issues on that front. He added later in the afternoon that he was “not 100 percent certain” of the absence situation.

The Wednesday vote came almost a month after four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.) and McConnell — sided with every Senate Democrat on a resolution disapproving of Trump’s levies against Canada. 

The Canada vote and the possibility of more defections led Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to implore members over their Tuesday lunch to stick together, with an eye toward keeping those voting with Democrats to a minimum.

Collins, Murkowski and Paul again voted with Democrats, but Republicans had an opportunity with McConnell’s absence to play some hardball in the form of a vote to table a measure that would have allow the chamber to bring the bill up for a vote again in short order. Vice President Vance appeared to break the deadlock. 

Despite the vote failure, some Democrats still viewed the situation as a win, because it forced Vance and Republicans to vote in favor of the sweeping tariffs that have sent the stock market on a roller coaster. 

“It was a win-win either way. If we won the vote, it was a good win like we won the Canada vote,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters on Thursday. “But we knew if we lost, every single Republican — including those up for election — was the single vote that kept … these onerous tariffs on the backs of the American people. 

“Republicans own it. They care so much about tariffs, they had to bring JD Vance to come in and break the … tie. They own it now. They’re stuck,” Schumer continued. “We wanted to have the vote to show the contrast with Trump on the 100th day.”

The minority party was also quick to note that the resolution was non-binding and would have been dead on arrival in the House if it had cleared — just like the Canada resolution was. 

The failed vote also is not deterring those who spearheaded Thursday’s effort, with numerous members involved in the push vowing that there will be more to come in the coming months. 

“We’ve got many more opportunities to force these votes,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who led the Canada tariff vote effort and worked with Wyden and Paul on the “Liberation Day” resolution. He called Wednesday’s vote “unfortunate.”

“You’re looking at a lot of them,” he continued. “On the prediction that Donald Trump is going to continue to use emergency powers a lot … every time he does an emergency thing, we’re going to do this.”