Mitch McConnell tried to use a time-tested tactic to break his fellow senators’ will and get what he wants: the threat of missing their vacation after a grueling, six-week work period.

It didn’t work.


The majority leader prioritized a fast-track trade bill over renewing three key PATRIOT Act provisions that expire on May 31. McConnell got the trade bill through on Friday evening, but his attempts to exhaust his colleagues and jam through a clean extension of surveillance laws blew apart just after 1 a.m. Saturday.

A trio of libertarian-leaning senators objected to McConnell’s attempts to offer even a two-day extension of the programs, leaving the Republican leader little option but to send lawmakers home and regroup for a last-ditch attempt next week to salvage the PATRIOT Act.

Like a stern school principal, the majority leader tried to keep his pupils in session until they finished their work, using the impending Memorial Day recess as motivation to keep the PATRIOT Act’s bulk data collection alive. But he miscalculated how hard Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) would fight any attempt at a clean extension.

Now the Senate will come back in session on May 31 at 4 p.m., just eight hours before the bulk data collection programs — as well as provisions allowing roving wiretaps and surveillance against suspected terrorists not affiliated with a known terrorist group — expire.

McConnell now has to hope that the objectors won’t ultimately want to be associated with shuttering programs the government uses to combat terrorism — and that an immediate deadline, as opposed to one 10 days away after a recess, will be enough to convince Paul and Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico to relent.

“We’ll have one day to do it. So we better be ready,” McConnell said. He refused to answer questions as he left the Capitol in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Democrats were quick to blame McConnell for generating the crisis by setting a schedule relied on force of will and exhaustion to pass a clean PATRIOT Act extension and a highway bill, which was approved. It would be a serious blemish to let a major national security program lapse just five months into his tenure as majority leader.

“After everybody gets a good night’s sleep and is thinking clearly we can figure out a way forward on this,” predicted Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, McConnell’s chief deputy. “We’ll fix it. I’m confident.”

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), called the episode “an entirely predictable consequence of Senator McConnell’s bad habit of governing by manufactured crisis.” But Reid himself, who had tried to block the trade bill in order to force McConnell to confront the expiring surveillance law, declined to criticize McConnell.

Asked if McConnell had made a strategic mistake, Reid replied to reporters: “You guys can make that decision.”

Republicans said no matter how they constructed the schedule, the Senate was going to run into Paul’s blockade on surveillance laws.

“It’s not an order issue, it’s a Paul issue,” said one senior GOP aide.

McConnell wagered heavily at the start of the day that the beckoning Memorial Day break would trump the prospect of countless more hours on the Senate floor. But he didn’t properly gauge Paul, who many privately predicted would fold. Instead the presidential candidate gets to hit the campaign trail over the next week having forced to the brink of demise a government program he’s been railing against for years and made a central part of his 2016 bid.

When the Senate returns for an extremely rare Sunday session next week, everyone will be wondering what he’ll do next. Paul seems confident he can bend McConnell — and the entire Senate — to his will and secure votes on two privacy-related amendments. All 100 senators would have to agree to Paul’s unilateral demands of votes on his proposals, a near impossibility in a Senate where every lawmaker is scrapping to secure votes on their proposals week in and out.

“I offered a very reasonable compromise,” Paul Said. “Sometimes things change as deadlines approach.”

The Senate’s a frantic final stretch of legislating kicked off around 5 p.m. Friday. Lawmakers dispensed with the Trade Promotion Authority bill and a controversial currency manipulation amendment before pivoting to the divisive debate on the National Security Agency.

The trade measure passed, 62-37, after the Senate rebuffed the currency amendment on a 48-51 vote. The chamber also easily passed a transportation law keeping road crews working through the end of July.

Some Senators who’ve witnessed previous leaders like Reid use a pending vacation to their advantage thought it would probably succeed this time, too.

“He’s playing on this departure syndrome. People want out of here,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of McConnell. “I’m telling you it works.”

And for a few hours, it looked promising for McConnell. He was able to exhaust anti-trade Democrats quickly. They capitulated around 9 p.m., sending the House a bill that empowers Obama to expedite trade agreements.

Then things disintegrated.

Still, lawmakers kept their senses of humor through the long night. When Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked an attempt by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to vote on ending a catfish inspection program, McCain audibly booed the ruling that his amendment wasn’t germane.

While introducing his amendment that would require Congress to approve new countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) wondered allowed about how things would be under a President Hillary Clinton or a President Lindsey Graham — a reference to the long odds that the South Carolina GOP senator faces in a potential presidential run.

Later, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took a reporter’s microphone and began interviewing Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who joked that “our country’s national security is totally at risk” because of Cruz, who then offered to give reporters his resume.

In the end, McConnell achieved his top priority of getting the fast-track trade bill through the Senate. As for the other measures, the Republican leader was only looking to delay, and that remains a best-case scenario for McConnell on a pivotal day next Sunday.

The House left town on Thursday and leaders have refused to say whether they’d being the chamber back before June 1, when the three key PATRIOT Act provisions expire.

“The shoe is on the other foot for once,” said an unconcerned Rep. Bob Dold (R-Ill.) when asked why the House is jamming the Senate and how it will be resolved.

The yawning divide between the two chambers has been on display all week. McConnell and Cornyn worked successfully to kill the USA Freedom Act, which would end the controversial bulk data collection program and passed the House by an overwhelming 338-88 margin. It was defeated in the Senate by a narrow margin.

Hawkish Republicans believed that if the Senate showed it lacks the votes to approve the USA Freedom Act and can agree only to a short patch, it would force Speaker John Boehner to rescue to program over the weeklong Memorial Day recess.

But in the end, the problem isn’t the House. It’s right in front of McConnell in the Senate. And he’s betting the eight days and some time away from Washington is the solution.

“No one that I know believes that we should let the program lapse,” said McCain. “If the program lapses, it literally puts the country in danger.”

Kate Tummarello, Seung Min Kim and John Bresnahan contributed to this report.