Speaking in the Cabinet Room during a bilateral meeting and lunch with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has spent years undermining his nation's democratic safeguards to make it almost impossible for his Fidesz to lose power, Trump was deep in a meandering soliloquy about how Democratic victories in Tuesday's off-year elections were the consequence of "lying" about his record on "affordability" when he was asked how to put an end to what is currently the longest government shutdown in American history.
In response, he informed the gathered media that Senate Republicans should use the so-called "nuclear option" to abandon the upper chamber's filibuster rule as the "way to do it."
“I am totally in favor of terminating the filibuster, and we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place, and lots of other good things would happen. And it doesn't make any sense that a Republican would not want to do that,”
he said.
Then, after the Senate removed the minority party's ability to block legislation, he rattled off a list of partisan proposals he would push for Congress to pass. These included a national voter identification mandate and a ban on postal balloting, which he has falsely claimed is "corrupt" and rife with "fraud."
Trump claimed that if those laws were sent to his desk, Republicans "would never lose" the next midterm elections. According to current polling, his party is certain to lose both the House majority and the Senate.
Without a filibuster rule in place, he added, Republicans would "never lose the general election" because they would "have produced so many different things for our people."
“If we terminate the filibuster, the country will be open within 10 minutes after that termination, because we'll take a second vote, which is the opening of the country, and the Republicans will vote to open the country,”
he said.
He later added that bipartisanship “didn’t work” and warned that keeping the Senate’s supermajority requirement would keep the GOP “in a slog with the Democrats” during which “very little for either party will be done.”
Due to a centuries-old quirk in parliamentary procedure that permits the minority party to prevent up-or-down votes on bills that can't garner support from at least 60 senators, the filibuster rule, which dates back to a revision of the chamber's standing rules under then-vice president Aaron Burr in 1806, has frustrated presidents and congressional majorities from both parties.
When progressive Democrats held unified control of Washington from 2021 to 2023, they attempted to outlaw the practice, but the entire Republican minority in the House and a number of Democratic senators voted against it.
Days after his party suffered crushing defeats in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections at the hands of voters incensed over his administration's inability to address rising prices contributing to an ever-increasing cost of living in the United States, the president demanded to dismantle one of the few remaining safeguards against unbridled GOP power in Washington.
citing the laser-focused campaigns of Virginia Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger and New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, who concentrated on "affordability" Trump claimed that the Democrats' emphasis on "affordability" was "a con job," just one year after voters in the 2024 presidential election cited rising costs as the reason for his reelection.
“Prices are down under the Trump administration, and they're down substantially ... gasoline is way down, and the other big thing is ... inflation is way down ... we did a great job on groceries and affordability. The The only problem is the fake news. You people don't want to report it,”
he said.
“The reason I don't want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows that it's far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden and the prices are way down.”
How would eliminating the supermajority affect filibuster use in the Senate?
Without the filibuster, legislation could be passed with a simple maturity 51 votes rather of the current 60 making it easier for the maturity party to legislate its legislative docket fleetly.
rescinding this rule would reduce the power of the nonage and could lead to more prejudiced, nippy policy changes, especially on contentious issues. still, numerous legislators, including significant numbers within both parties, have expressed enterprises that barring the filibuster could lead to increased polarization and undermine the Senate’s part as a chamber of extended deliberation and agreement.
The move would be seen as a major procedural shift, frequently appertained to as the “ nuclear option,” and could unnaturally alter the legislative process, with both short- term advantages for the maturity and long- term pitfalls of legislative insecurity and prejudiced corrosion.