{"id":15089,"date":"2025-10-31T15:46:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-quickly-push-back-on-trumps-call-to-nix-filibuster\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T15:46:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T15:46:38","slug":"republicans-quickly-push-back-on-trumps-call-to-nix-filibuster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/republicans-quickly-push-back-on-trumps-call-to-nix-filibuster\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans quickly push back on Trump\u2019s call to nix filibuster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republicans are quickly tamping down President Donald Trump\u2019s call to eliminate the Senate filibuster as they try to keep pressure on Democrats to end the 31-day government shutdown.<\/p>\n

GOP leaders believed Thursday they were on track to reopen agencies as soon as next week. Then Trump threw a fresh complication into their laps overnight when he revived calls for Republicans to invoke the \u201cnuclear option\u201d and eliminate the 60-vote threshold for passing most legislation. Without it, Republican senators could reopen the government on their own.<\/p>\n

But many GOP senators have vocally defended the filibuster, including Majority Leader John Thune<\/a>, calling the 60-vote rule a fundamental feature of the Senate and one that works to conservatives\u2019 benefit in the long run.<\/p>\n

Thune has defended the filibuster multiple times during the shutdown, calling it a \u201cbad idea\u201d to suggest eliminating it. \u201cThe 60-vote threshold has protected this country,\u201d he said earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Ryan Wrasse, a spokesperson for the South Dakota Republican, said in a statement on Friday that \u201cLeader Thune\u2019s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kate Noyes \u2014 a spokesperson for Sen. John Barrasso<\/a> of Wyoming, the No. 2 GOP leader \u2014 said on Friday his position in support of the legislative filibuster also hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>, who has no direct role in Senate affairs but occupies a key role in managing the shutdown, also struck a cautionary note in comments to reporters Friday.<\/p>\n

He called the filibuster a \u201cSenate chamber issue\u201d but added that it \u201chas traditionally been viewed as a very important safeguard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s demand \u2014 made in a pair of<\/a> Truth Social posts<\/a> \u2014 came just as GOP senators believed they were on the brink of convincing enough Senate Democrats to reopen the government. A bipartisan group of rank-and-file senators are planning to talk through the weekend, with some lawmakers believing a deal could be reached by the middle of next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE GONE STONE COLD ‘CRAZY,’ THE CHOICE IS CLEAR \u2014 INITIATE THE ‘NUCLEAR OPTION,’ GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n

He separately indicated he wanted the rules changed not only to reopen the government but to also pass other GOP priorities before Democrats regain power and eliminate the filibuster themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats will exercise their rights, and it will be done in the first day they take office, regardless of whether or not we do it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

To change the chamber\u2019s rules, Republicans would need 50 votes plus a tiebreak from Vice President JD Vance \u2014 meaning they could lose no more than three senators.<\/p>\n

Republicans do not currently have the votes within the conference to nix the filibuster, four people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations told Blue Light News Friday.<\/p>\n

Beyond Thune and Barrasso, Trump is already getting other public defections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate. Power changes hands, but principles shouldn\u2019t. I\u2019m a firm no on eliminating it,\u201d Sen. John Curtis<\/a> (R-Utah) wrote on X on Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Daniel Keylin, a spokesperson for Sen. Thom Tillis<\/a>, said Friday that the North Carolina Republican \u201cwould never vote to eliminate the legislative filibuster under any circumstance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to Trump\u2019s postings Thursday, more than a dozen GOP senators had rejected chatter about changing Senate rules as the shutdown dragged on in recent weeks. Those include Tillis and Sen. Lisa Murkowski<\/a> of Alaska, who both have an independent streak, as well as frequent Trump allies such as Sens. John Cornyn<\/a> (R-Texas), Kevin Cramer<\/a> (R-N.D.) and James Lankford<\/a> (R-Okla.).<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Sen. Mitch McConnell<\/a> of Kentucky, who as majority leader during Trump\u2019s first term, repeatedly fended off the president\u2019s previous attacks on the filibuster.<\/p>\n

McConnell didn\u2019t immediately respond on Friday to Trump\u2019s comments. But his office pointed back to comments he made in a recent biography: \u201cTrump asked me to go nuclear and I had a one word answer: \u2018No.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the GOP fervor to eliminate the filibuster is coming from the House, where some conservative hard-liners have raised the possibility of muscling spending legislation past Democrats by changing the other chamber\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a> (R-Ga.), for instance, pressed Johnson on the idea during a House Republican Conference call this week, urging the Senate GOP to simply change the rules and pass the House-approved stopgap spending bill.<\/p>\n

But other voices in the GOP aren\u2019t sold, and Johnson\u2019s wariness Friday reflects widespread sentiment in his ranks.<\/p>\n

Johnson chalked up Trump\u2019s comments to what some other Republicans speculated privately on Friday: That Trump, like GOP lawmakers, is growing frustrated by the weeks-long shutdown, which is on track to break the 35-day record next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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,\u201d Johnson added.<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are quickly tamping down President Donald Trump\u2019s call to eliminate the Senate filibuster as they try to keep pressure on Democrats to end the 31-day government shutdown. GOP leaders believed Thursday they were on track to reopen agencies as soon as next week. Then Trump threw a fresh complication into their laps overnight when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}