President Donald Trump on Tuesday pressed Republicans to do away with the filibuster in the Senate, warning that failing to do so would cost his party control of Congress and the White House in the next two election cycles.
“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,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“FOR THREE YEARS, NOTHING WILL BE PASSED, AND REPUBLICANS WILL BE BLAMED. Elections, including the Midterms, will be rightfully brutal,” he continued. “If we do terminate the Filibuster, we will get EVERYTHING approved, like no Congress in History.”
The posts came on Election Day morning as voters in Virginia and New Jersey are set to decide two hard-fought gubernatorial races — and on Day 35 of a government shutdown that more Americans blame Republicans for than Democrats, according to an ABC News poll last week.
The Senate’s filibuster rule requires 60 votes to bring legislation to the floor and for passage, something both parties have contemplated doing away with in recent years given the chokehold effect on lawmaking in an era of intense partisanship and narrowly divided government.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly dismissed Trump’s proposal on Monday, telling reporters “the votes aren’t there.”
Trump’s first year back in office has produced just one major piece of legislation, a massive package of tax cuts and energy deregulation — the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” as Trump dubbed it — which Republicans passed using a budgetary maneuver that circumvented the filibuster and allowed for passage with just 51 votes. He has not outlined a major legislative agenda for the rest of his term, governing largely by executive orders.
In his post, he suggested a number of conservative priorities — election reforms, more tax cuts, additional actions on the border — that Congress could act on if the filibuster were no longer in place.
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