Trump doubles down on killing the filibuster after election trouncing
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President Trump gestures to Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso after speaking during a breakfast meeting with Senate Republicans at the White House on Nov. 5. Photo: Saul LoebAFP via Getty Images
President Trump on Wednesday again urged Republican Senators to kill the filibuster as a means to end the record-shattering government shutdown.
Why it matters: Despite Trump's demands for a simple-majority Senate to speed his agenda, many Senate Republicans — including Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) — have opposed the idea.
Driving the news: "If you don't terminate the filibuster, you'll be in bad shape," the president told GOP senators the morning after Democrats claimed a wave of key victories in off-year elections.
- The government remains shut down — and it's become the longest shutdown in history, surpassing the record set during Trump's first term.
What he's saying: "We have to get the country open," he said. "And the way we're going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the filibuster."
- Trump acknowledged "it's possible" that won't happen, but he said it would be a "tremendous mistake."
- He continued, "It would be a tragic mistake. Actually, it's time."
- One Trump adviser previously told Axios that the president will make lawmakers' "lives a living hell" over ending the filibuster.
Zoom out: Trump also renewed his ire over the Senate's "blue slip" tradition, which allows senators to block certain judicial and prosecutor nominations for their states.
- "I think you should terminate blue slips too," he said Wednesday. He called blue slips "a disaster" and suggested he didn't want nominees who would garner Democratic approval.
- "The only people I can get approved are Democrats," he said. "That's not going to work that way with me."
- He claimed he fired then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert after seeing glowing letters from Virginia's two Democratic senators. Siebert's ouster came after he reportedly found insufficient evidence to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and did not prosecute former FBI director James Comey.
Threat level: While ending the filibuster could make Republicans' jobs easier in the short run by lowering the threshold for senators to pass bills, it could haunt them in the years to come if Democrats reclaim control of the chamber.
- And after Tuesday's sweeping Democratic victories, the political left is signaling confidence in their momentum.
Zoom in: Trump also reiterated his prior suggestion that the government shutdown — and the fact that his own name wasn't on the ballot — was to blame for Republicans' losses.
- But even without Trump on the ballot, Democrats framed the results a direct rebuke of his agenda and allies. In House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries' (N.Y.) words, "The Democratic Party is back."
The bottom line: Thune recently signaled that the votes aren't there for Trump's filibuster-busting dream, and the GOP leader's stance on the filibuster's value has remained steady.
Go deeper: Trump tells Senate Republicans to use "nuclear option" to end shutdown
