Sen. Mike Rounds said Sunday he backs Sen. John Thune, his fellow GOP senator from South Dakota, to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell as the chamber's party leader, as it is important to have "someone who will work with a president but also will stand his own ground."
But no matter who takes over, the party will have "continued good leadership," the South Dakota Republican said on ABC News' "This Week."
Thune, he continued, is "solid, and he understands politics as well," but there are also leadership changes needed in the White House, so Senate Republicans will get behind the eventual GOP presidential nominee.
Rounds noted that former President Donald Trump, as the party front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, will have a voice in who eventually becomes the new Senate GOP leader, but at the same time, there are "a lot of independent thinkers" as well.
"The former president will have, you know, the opportunity to influence a number of my colleagues, but we also want to be able to have a good working relationship with him if he becomes the next president of the United States," said Rounds, who like Thune has come under fire from Trump. "We've got things we've got to get done."
The border, he continued, must be fixed, as well as the cost of living, which has "gone up about $10,000 a year since Joe Biden took office."
"We're prepared to work with whoever the next president is, but I think you're going to find that a lot of folks in the Senate will take their own time in terms of how they work through the vote, on a vote-by-vote basis when they're going to support the president and when they're not," Rounds said.
Thune, he added, would "bring a fresh breath" as leader.
"That always happens when you have a change in leadership," said Rounds. "We've got some other folks that are going to take a look at it. They are good people.
"It's not a matter of having a bad choice out there for those of us in the Senate, but we've got some really good choices. I happen to think John Thune is the right guy at the right time."
Members of the Senate must look at the long-term implications of the party's leader, Rounds said. "We're elected from every single state, and we want to take care of our individual states, but we've also got the bigger picture of constitutionally what is right, and also in terms of national defense," said Rounds.
The senator also discussed Trump's claims of immunity, which the Supreme Court is to take up, and said he does not believe that a president should have absolute immunity for the actions he or she has undertaken.
"I was of the same opinion that Sen. McConnell expressed, which was an impeachment process is designed as a civil action, not as a criminal action, and that if a person is no longer in office, that an impeachment would be inappropriate," said Rounds.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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