“There’s so many things we could put in, including tax cuts that we could get,” Trump said Thursday. “And we could do it all ourselves.”
Senate Republicans have largely backed President Donald Trump’s agenda since he returned to office — but many refuse to support his campaign to scrap the filibuster.
Trump asked Republican senators at a meeting at the White House on Wednesday to end the government shutdown by getting rid of the filibuster and reiterated his demand Thursday at a news conference.
The filibuster, a long-standing Senate rule, allows a single senator to block most legislation unless 60 senators vote to cut off debate. Democrats have used the filibuster to block Republicans’ government funding bill for more than a month despite Republicans’ 53-seat Senate majority.
Some Senate Republicans returned from the White House saying they were open to ending the filibuster. But doing away with the rule would require the support of almost every Republican senator — and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and many other Republicans say they are implacably opposed to it.
“There’s nothing that could move me on the filibuster,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told reporters Wednesday after the White House meeting.
Senate Republicans’ unwillingness to scrap the filibuster underscores the limits of Trump’s influence in his second term, during which lawmakers have been reluctant to defy him.
The Senate has confirmed every member of Trump’s Cabinet — with the exception of former congressman Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first choice for attorney general, who withdrew because he did not have the necessary votes.Senators passed Trump’s signature tax-and-spending bill and approved $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting that Congress enacted despite the misgivings of some Republicans.
But Republicans opposed to abolishing the filibuster are standing firm. Many of them describe it as a bulwark against Democrats when Republicans are out of power.
Republicans “know how fundamental [the filibuster] is to making this nation exceptional,” Tillis said Thursday. “As platitude as that sounds, I believe in their heart they believe that.”
Trump’s disdain for the filibuster is not new. He tried to convince McConnell to do away with it during his first term without success. He has suggested in recent days that he sees it as an impediment to his agenda, telling reporters on Thursday that getting rid of it would let Republicans pass sweeping voting and immigration bills, among other GOP priorities.
“There’s so many things we could put in, including tax cuts that we could get,” Trump said Thursday. “And we could do it all ourselves.”
But even some of Trump’s staunchest allies argue that giving the Senate the ability to pass any bill strictly on party lines would backfire.
“I think it’s better for the country to have that institutional check and balance, to keep [from]going from wild swings from one president to the next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.
Both parties have chipped away at the filibuster for years. Democrats changed the Senate’s rules in 2013 to let most nominees be confirmed by a simple majority rather than 60 votes. Republicans did the same in 2017 for Supreme Court nominees.
Democrats argue that Republicans weakened the filibuster this year by changing the Senate’s rules to allow confirmation of multiple nominees at once. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) accused Republicans in September of undercutting the Senate “to give Donald Trump more power and to rubber-stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked.”
Democrats tried to weaken the filibuster further in 2022 to pass a voting rights bill, but failed due to the opposition of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III and Kyrsten Sinema. Neither Manchin nor Sinema — both of whom later left the party — ran for reelection last year, leading some Republicans to argue that Democrats will get rid of the filibuster as soon as they recapture control of the Senate.
“It’s gone, so we better beat them to the punch,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) said.
Trump has echoed that argument.
“They’re going to make Puerto Rico a state. They’re going to make D.C. a state. They’re going to pack the court,” Trump told reporters Thursday, referring to a Democratic proposal to add seats to the Supreme Court. “They’re going to end up with more electoral votes. They’re going to end up with four [more] senators.”
Republican senators have bucked Trump from time to time since he returned to office, demonstrating that they will not support the president on everything.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, rejected Trump’s call to get rid of the “blue slip,” the Senate custom that gives senators an effective veto over district court judge and U.S. attorney nominees in their home states.
Republicans have torpedoed an increasing number of Trump’s nominees, including Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel; E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Ed Martin to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. And Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Rand Paul (Kentucky) — each of whom support the filibuster — have voted with Democrats several times on resolutions to undo Trump’s tariffs, allowing them to pass the Senate.
“My belief is that the filibuster encourages moderation, encourages both sides to be heard, and that legislation doesn’t occur unless it has more of a consensus of support,” Paul said. “It keeps the country from drifting too far to the right, too far to the left.”
A few Republicans said the shutdown — which has dragged on for more than a month, delaying flights, forcing many federal workers to labor without pay and threatening Supplemental Nutrition Association Program benefits — has convinced them the filibuster might need to go.
“We’re at a crisis point,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said. “If the only way out of this crisis is to change the filibuster, then I’ll do it.”
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