President Donald Trump has doubled down on his call for the Senate to disregard a practice it has held for hundreds of years in order to reopen the government and avoid an electoral clobbering.
‘TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social app Tuesday morning, one of several posts calling on Senate Republicans to circumvent the historic congressional practice requiring a two-thirds vote for significant legislation to pass.
As the ongoing federal funding lapse continues and is set to become the longest in history, the president has more frequently called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to forgo the filibuster to pass a government funding bill with only GOP votes.
If Thune and his fellow conservative lawmakers fail to capitulate, next year’s midterm elections will derail the administration’s plans, Trump warned in another lengthy post.
‘The Democrats are far more likely to win the Midterms, and the next Presidential Election, if we don’t do the Termination of the Filibuster (The Nuclear Option!), because it will be impossible for Republicans to get Common Sense Policies done with these Crazed Democrat Lunatics being able to block everything by withholding their votes.’
Commonly referred to as the nuclear option, Senate Republicans could amend the current rules to lower the threshold from needing 60 votes to a simple majority.
However, longtime senators on both sides of the aisle have been wary of doing so because the lower voting threshold would inevitably benefit the other party once they take power in the future.
Though Trump does not see it as an opportunity to help Republicans avoid electoral scrutiny for the near-record shutdown, he knows it could also supercharge his policy agenda.
President Donald Trump has called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to rally his caucus and use the nuclear option to lower the threshold needed for government funding votes from 60 to a simple majority
Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren have advocated for members of her party to hold fast and avoid negotiating with the GOP on the government shutdown
After calling to destroy the filibuster, Trump adds, ‘then, most importantly, pass every wonderful Republican policy that we have dreamt of, for years, but never gotten.’
‘We will get everything approved, like no Congress in history,’ he added.
Some of the many policy proposals included his various campaign promises, like election reforms, including more robust voter ID laws, as well as codifying restrictions on transgender sports into law.
Attempting to paint a dystopian Democratic vision if the nuclear option is not used to abolish the filibuster, the president also warned that Republicans may not only lose the next two election cycles, but the political landscape in the US might change irreversibly.
Trump warned that liberals would make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., independent states with assuredly liberal congressional representation.
Though the administration has not faced particularly staunch roadblocks in achieving its legislative goals this year.
In March, during another government funding showdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, rallied some of his members to vote alongside conservatives to keep the government funded.
In July, Republicans were able to shepherd Trump’s signature policy agenda – the big beautiful bill – through Congress for a Fourth of July signing ceremony.
Demonstrators hold a rally, holding banners and chanting slogans as they gather to protest against Trump administration and the government shutdown
Using a tool called reconciliation, Republicans just needed a simple majority then and were largely able to avoid the Democratic support typically necessary to pass legislation.
If the Republican-led Senate does lead the charge and abolishes the filibuster, it would serve as a watershed moment representing a dramatic change in the historic chamber’s procedure that would have impacts for generations.
