The Senate’s rules were made “by a heroin addict with a socket wrench.” In a gridlocked chamber, “doing nothing is very hard … you never know when you’re finished.” John Thune did everything but “bark like a dog” to get a deal with Democrats.

One of those lines would get any other lawmaker outsized attention, but all are from a single day in the life of Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. He’s been the Senate’s one-man joke machine for nearly a decade, but he’s getting more serious these days: On the same day as his quip-filled speeches, he threatened to derail Republicans’ agenda in a bid to get his party to address the rising cost of living.

Kennedy’s not a moderate like Lisa Murkowski, a contrarian like Rand Paul, or untethered and near retirement like Thom Tillis. Yet President Donald Trump’s second term has seen Kennedy transforming into a folksy force who’s willing to maximize his leverage and platform as a member of some of the Hill’s most powerful committees.

“I play outside the pocket. Just always have and always will,” Kennedy told Semafor of his approach, which delights and puzzles his colleagues at turns. “And that’s why I’ll never be part of leadership. I don’t completely fit in.”

“I’ve always thought that’s one of my best qualities,” he added. “And sometimes that pisses them off, and sometimes it doesn’t. I do try to be a team player.”

The twangy second-term senator doesn’t always go easy on his team. Kennedy fileted former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a committee hearing over her agency’s ad spending, directly contributing to her subsequent firing by Trump. He was one of the Banking Committee’s first GOP members to speak out against the Trump-backed investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

He also predicted months ago that Democrats would never fund ICE and that the Department of Homeland Security would endure a lengthy shutdown — nudging Thune and other leaders to partially fund DHS in response, despite conservative criticism of the idea.

He has withheld his support for the banking panel’s proposal to overhaul cryptocurrency regulation and aired frustration with the administration for not leaning on the House to pass the Senate’s housing affordability legislation.

“He’s a clever bugger,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told Semafor. “He’s definitely flexed. No question about it; it’s hard to miss.”

Cramer likened Kennedy to the TV attorney Ben Matlock, who also used an aw-shucks demeanor to disarm witnesses. What does Kennedy think of that? 

“I guess that’s a compliment. I’d rather be called Brad Pitt,” he told Semafor.

Budget Committee Chair Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., deadpanned some fainter praise: “He’s … Kennedy-esque.” (Kennedy wrote in his bestselling book last year that Graham might “vomit in the fish tank” during a dinner party.)

Some Republicans see Kennedy as flying too close to the sun with his occasionally adversarial approach to a White House that prizes loyalty above all else. He supported the Fed’s resistance of Trump’s calls for lower interest rates and urged the Trump administration to show its math when it tried to fire a central bank governor for alleged mortgage fraud.

Just last week he warned that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is giving Trump “incredibly bad advice” on a Spirit Airlines bailout that was later scrapped.

Kennedy said he and Trump have a “good” relationship but that he’s “not much into being a groupie” either.

“I don’t call him every day. I don’t go hang around over there when I need him. I call him. I got a cell number. He calls me back. Sometimes he says ‘yes,’ sometimes he says ‘no,’ but I don’t bother him there a lot,” Kennedy said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

In retrospect, Kennedy made clear he wouldn’t rubber-stamp Trump’s nominees nine years ago when he flummoxed one judicial pick by asking basic legal questions.

“He’s probably a nominee’s worst nightmare,” said Tillis, who helped end the criminal probe into Powell by temporarily blocking Trump’s nominee for Fed chair.