“Because of the fact that the Democrats have gone stone cold ‘crazy,’ the choice is clear,” the president wrote on Truth Social late Thursday night. “Initiate the ‘nuclear option,’ get rid of the filibuster and, make America great again!”
Trump’s suggestion comes just days after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reportedly raised the idea herself during a Republican caucus call, where she excoriated other GOP lawmakers.
“I said I have no respect for the House not being in session passing our bills and the President’s executive orders. And I demanded to know from Speaker Johnson what the Republican plan for healthcare is,” Greene wrote in a statement on X, confirming reports of her message on the call.
Still, most Republican Senators had already left for the weekend by the time Trump made his demands on Thursday. Those remaining in D.C. on Friday signaled to reporters that they were not seriously considering the president’s advice.
Ryan Wrasse, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), said in a statement: “Leader Thune’s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.” Thune had previously stated after winning his Senate leadership position that the filibuster rule would not be altered during his tenure as leader.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who has spent the past month blaming Democrats for the current shutdown, similarly told reporters the filibuster is “a very important” legislative “safeguard.”
“If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it,” Johnson stated. “What you’re seeing is an expression of the president’s anger at the situation. He is as angry as I am and the American people are about this madness, and he just desperately wants the government to be reopened.”
White House officials declined to respond to Republican lawmakers’ rejection of Trump’s proposal.
The Senate could abolish the filibuster with a simple majority vote, plus Vice President JD Vance serving as the tiebreaker. This means that the president could only lose four Republican lawmakers and still successfully change the Senate rules.
However, beyond Republican leadership, a number of rank-and-file GOP Senators also voiced displeasure with the president’s proposal.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who has frequently clashed with the White House on legislative matters since January, will “never vote to eliminate the legislative filibuster under any circumstance,” a Tillis spokesperson told Politico.
“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) wrote in a statement on X. “Power changes hands, but principles shouldn’t. I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”
As expected, Democrats have warned against ending the Senate’s filibuster rule as the shutdown extended across October — a position that was less common in the caucus during much of President Joe Biden‘s term.
Democrats unsuccessfully pushed the former president to back ending the Senate rule in order to pass his failed Build Back Better economic spending package, voting rights legislation, and new federal abortion protections.
During a 2021 town hall with CNN, Biden claimed that nuking the filibuster would “throw the entire Congress into chaos, and nothing would get done.”
Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, the president suggested openness to temporarily altering the Senate’s filibuster rule to codify abortion rights, but ultimately conceded that Democrats lacked the votes in the chamber to do so.
“I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law. And the way to do that is to make sure Congress votes to do that,” he stated at a press conference while in Madrid, Spain, for a NATO leaders summit.
“If the filibuster gets in the way, it’s like voting rights, it should be we provide an exception for this, should require an exception to the filibuster for this action, to deal with the Supreme Court decision.”
However, after Trump’s victory in November 2024, Democrats quickly began retreating from their Biden-era filibuster positions.
“I’d be lying if I said we’d be in a better position without the filibuster,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told the Washington Examiner at the time. “We have a responsibility to stop autocratic and long-headed abuse of power or policy, and we’ll use whatever tools we have available. We’re not going to fight this battle with one hand tied behind our back.”
“You play with the rules that exist,” added Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT).
### Looming Snap Deadline Amps Up Shutdown Pressure on Both Trump and Democrats
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) mocked the filibuster flip from Democrats earlier this month.
“We ran on that. We ran on killing the filibuster, and now we love it,” he told reporters. “I don’t want to hear any Democrat clutching their pearls about the filibuster. We all ran on it.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3870856/republicans-quick-to-burst-trumps-filibuster-trial-balloon/
