The Senate’s top two Republicans, John Thune (R-SD) and John Barrasso (R-WY), called the president after the vote, joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bernie Moreno (R-OH).

Trump then posted a surprised “Wow!” on Truth Social to express satisfaction with the about-face.

Earlier in the day, Trump got into a yelling match with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), one of the senators who ultimately changed his vote, and spent much of the lunch fuming over his sense that Republicans were undermining his negotiations with Iran.

INSIDE TRUMP’S EXPLOSIVE MEETING WITH SENATE REPUBLICANS

The vent session was part of a larger rift with congressional Republicans over his second-term priorities. On top of Iran, Trump has been lashing out over the Senate’s inaction on the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election bill that has stalled out due to the filibuster.

The appointment of Bill Pulte, a Trump loyalist, as acting intelligence chief has also become a stumbling block, and Republicans want him out of the job and replaced by his expected successor, Jay Clayton.

For now, a bipartisan housing bill and the renewal of a key spy program have become casualties of those standoffs, and their fate was in limbo as Senate Republicans left for the July 4 recess.

The Iran war vote, the final one taken as senators departed Washington, amounts to a ramp-down in those tensions and was accompanied by three conversations in total Wednesday between Trump and Thune, two of them over the phone and one in person after the lunch.

A source familiar with the conversations described them as “positive,” and it appeared the White House, too, wanted to smooth things over afterward.

Barrasso’s whip operation on the war powers vote was aided by Vice President JD Vance, the top peace negotiator for Iran. Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff hosted Cassidy in the White House Situation Room for a briefing on Iran and held a dinner with GOP senators that evening. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) flipped his vote to “present” afterward, while Cassidy joined Republicans in voting “no.”

Trump, for his part, did not let the blow-up add to speculation that his relationship with Thune is fraying, but he did take a parting shot at Cassidy and others who have broken with him on the Senate floor.

Cassidy, in particular, has drawn the president’s ire for his 2021 impeachment vote, and Trump ran a successful primary challenge against him over it.

“We like our leader,” Trump said as he left the lunch. “We like everybody, really, in the room — I don’t like a few people, but that’s OK. I think you know who they are.”

Thune told the Washington Examiner the meeting at the Capitol was “important” insofar as it allowed Trump to air out his grievances.

“In that respect, it sort of accomplished the objective,” he said.

But left unaddressed was Senate Republicans’ own frustration with how the rough patch has been derailing their legislative agenda. Cassidy got an Iran briefing, but so far, lawmakers writ large have not. And Trump, holding up the housing bill over the SAVE America Act, canceled a signing ceremony for its passage Wednesday.

To some extent, Senate Republicans are at odds over those same issues. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the lead sponsor of the SAVE America Act, called Trump’s decision to delay the ceremony “bold” and voiced support for a presidential veto, if the president felt it was appropriate.

“If he’s got concerns with it, why not?” Lee said.

In terms of the spy program, Senate Republicans can’t get the votes to reauthorize it until Clayton, viewed as a more bipartisan choice for intelligence chief, is appointed, but there are, as of now, no plans to reschedule a confirmation hearing after Trump torpedoed the one already on the books last week.

“My partner Tom Cotton is anxious, and I’m anxious,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “But as we’ve seen again today, the president’s unpredictable.”

THUNE URGES TRUMP NOT TO VETO BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL: ‘HOPE HE DOESN’T GO THERE’

Over in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has proposed that Republicans get on the same page by passing elements of the SAVE America Act, namely block grants for ID and other voting requirements, through reconciliation. He traveled to the White House on Thursday to pitch Trump on that filibuster-skirting budget process. 

Still, Trump appears cool to that idea and told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that he did not want to settle for a “compromise” bill. Finding an off-ramp is increasingly becoming necessary for GOP leadership as House rebels threaten to shut down the floor in the absence of a path forward.