Just as Senate GOP leaders plan to begin moving several big-ticket items ahead of a planned August recess, President Donald Trump will head out west for a Los Angeles-area fundraiser and an economic speech in Las Vegas.

Trump is set to return to Washington, D.C., Wednesday night — when the chamber could be a few votes away from a monthlong recess in a midterm election year. And the president’s recent statements, threats and willingness to shift on policy shows he’s capable of slowing things down.

“President Trump will visit California on Tuesday to tout his wins for the people of the Golden State, despite failed Democrat leadership: the largest middle-class tax cut ever, the most secure border in American history, and a plummeting crime rate,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a Monday statement.

“The president will draw a sharp contrast between his commonsense agenda and the radical policies of Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who keep raising taxes, inviting rampant fraud in taxpayer-funded programs, and protecting illegal immigrant drug dealers, rapists, and murderers,” Wales added, referring to the California governor.

Trump is likely to amplify such attacks on Newsom as part of a midterm message he has been hitting hard: contending the Democratic Party has drifted too far to the left. 

Trump is expected to portray Newsom as one of the left’s leaders as the governor explores a 2028 presidential bid. But another possible 2028 contender said Sunday that Trump misreads recent primary victories by democratic socialists.

“People are upset at an unfair political and economic system. They can’t afford gas. They can’t afford food,” California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told the “Fox News Sunday” program. “Young people can’t afford to buy a home or get a job.”

The president is to headline a Republican National Committee fundraiser at his Los Angeles-area golf resort Tuesday night, then on Wednesday speaking about the economy in Las Vegas. 

Those events will be thousands of miles from the pre-recess maneuvering of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., with whom he has clashed for not securing the votes to kill the legislative filibuster and pass the so-called SAVE America Act, a GOP-crafted elections bill opposed by Democrats.

Thune has teed up an ambitious week as he tries to move several big-ticket measures while also freeing vulnerable GOP senators to get back home to campaign until mid-September. He wants to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government until Dec. 11, including a number of White House-requested priorities the House did not have when it passed its own continuing resolution before leaving for the summer last month.

Also on Thune’s list: a cryptocurrency bill, over 70 executive branch nominations and a Russia sanctions bill largely crafted by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close Trump ally.

The White House has not responded to an inquiry about whether Trump supports Thune’s get-out-of-town plan. 

Trump on Monday told reporters, again, that the Senate “should stay” in session until it passes the elections bill.

But he also alluded to the chamber’s independent streak​ and the power of jet fumes.

“There’s nothing more important than the SAVE America Act. I think they should stay,” he said. “They do what they want, but I think they should stay.”

Trump last week verbally backed the Russia sanctions measure, though he said he wanted senators to tack on new tariffs on Iran amid the ongoing war there.

‘Paid back’

The weekend brought a reminder of how disruptive Trump can be.

The president used a Saturday social media barrage to rail against retiring Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina for holding up the nomination of acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. They wanted a written agreement that a Trump-backed payout fund for individuals convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection would be nixed.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined! Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed,” the president wrote on Saturday, adding, “Todd Blanche, a good man, should be immediately approved as U.S. Attorney General.”

By Monday morning, Cornyn and Tillis announced a deal with Blanche and said they would support his nomination. In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump had this to say about that: “I didn’t look at it,” he said before indirectly mentioning his former personal attorney’s verbal promises to nix the proposed fund: “I think Todd Blanche agreed to reconfirm things that he’s already said, and what he said was OK.”

About Iran

Regarding the Iran war, Trump has toggled between threatening Tehran with strikes on civilian energy and infrastructure targets, before hours later sounding upbeat about the prospects of a peace pact. On Saturday night, he wrote on social media that the U.S. military had been “locked and loaded” for big strikes inside Iran, but he called those off after Iranian and Middle Eastern leaders informed him “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”

Speaking to reporters Sunday on Air Force One after a weekend at his New Jersey golf resort, Trump was both hawkish and upbeat about negotiations the Iranians later denied existed.

“It would have been disastrous for them and they didn’t want us to do it,” he said. “The deal is imminent, having to do with the Hormuz Strait and also, ultimately, the denuclearization of Iran.”

But by midday Monday, the tone shifted again.

“Iranian Leadership is unbelievably duplicitous! They ask for a meeting, some would say ‘beg,’ talks begin, with more scheduled in the immediate future, and they say, openly and proudly, that they’re not having any discussions,” he wrote on social media. “It is very simple, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”