Ira Glass

And they do not have the votes to overcome the chamber's de facto 60 vote majority required to pass legislation.

But because they haven't passed it, Trump says he'll block the renewal of a key spy tool.

Part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the government says underpins 60 percent of the president's daily intelligence brief.

I mean, things have broken down.

First, we've got three co-equal branches of government.

The Senate can't do what Trump wants because they don't have the votes.

U.S.

elections are also already secure.

The president keeps making the demands anyway.

Second, the Senate is supposed to be able to vet cabinet nominees, but the president's decision to block the confirmation of the full-time guy deprives them of that constitutional responsibility.

This is not how checks and balances are supposed to work, but it is where we find ourselves.

Senate Republicans have been here before, not that long ago.

I mean, I've recently been here in studio to talk about the president's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund the president hoped to use to issue payments to compensate people he says have been victimized by the government.

There was also a billion dollars the president wanted to fund security of his White House ballroom project.

Both of those are varying degrees of defeated, but they were both massive headaches for the Senate Republicans and nearly derailed funding for one of the president's own priorities, immigration enforcement.

I don't know.

Presumably, the Senate tries to get Jay Clayton's replacement as U.S.

attorney for the Southern District of New York confirmed quickly to unlock some things.

But the goalposts keep moving further away.

And I imagine there are still some surprises that lie ahead.