WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in Congress have spent most of the year caving to President Donald Trump’s demands — quickly confirming his Cabinet nominees, passing his “big, beautiful bill” of tax and spending cuts and keeping in place his sweeping tariffs despite deep reservations.
But Trump notes there are limits to Senate Republicans as he aggressively pushes them to eliminate the filibuster, the Senate’s longstanding rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation.
The filibuster “makes the Senate the Senate,” Majority Leader John Thune said, arguing that the votes are not there to change the rules. He and other Republicans emphasize that the filibuster has benefited their side when Democrats are in power.
Trump has long disagreed. At a breakfast with Senate Republicans Wednesday morning and again in a video released Wednesday evening, he renewed his calls to end the government shutdown by eliminating the filibuster and lowering the threshold for legislation to 51 votes. Democrats are using the filibuster as leverage to demand an extension of expiring health care subsidies as part of a government funding bill.
In the video, Trump urged Republicans to “fight” and “not be weak.”
“Republicans, you will rue the day you don’t end the filibuster,” Trump said.
Immediately after breakfast, Thune returned to the Capitol and stood his ground. “I know where the bill is in the Senate on this issue and it’s not happening,” he said.
The Republican resistance suggests that Republicans who have always remained devoted to the president are determined to protect the institution of the Senate beyond his term, knowing that no party will remain in power forever. But Trump faced little resistance from Congress in the first year of his second term and continues to push Republicans to act, even though they clearly rejected the idea.
Some Republicans may be worried about the future, Trump said earlier this week, but “we’re here right now.”
The Senate’s institutionalists remain forceful
Republicans were vocal about the need to keep the filibuster four years ago, when Democrats had the majority and tried to abolish it. In the end, the Democrats didn’t have the votes.
Republicans, who now have a 53-47 majority, appear even further away from having the votes to end the filibuster.
The second-largest Republican in the Senate, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, has said he would not support any changes. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell was the GOP leader in Trump’s first term and resisted his calls to eliminate him.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she attended the White House breakfast and Trump had not changed her mind. The filibuster “distinguishes us from those people across the room,” she said, referring to the House of Representatives.
“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said last week as Trump first called on Republicans to abolish it. He said he would be a “resounding no” if the topic came up.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said he could say, “With metaphysical certainty, this Congress will not nuke the filibuster, period, period.”
Even House Speaker Mike Johnson backed Thune, saying Sunday that Republicans have traditionally refused to call for an end to the filibuster because it protects them from “the worst impulses of the far-left Democratic Party.”
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Trump said he knew his move could jeopardize his relationship with Republicans, who “have been good to me for a very long time.”
“Do you ever have people who are wrong but you can’t convince them?” Trump said in the interview. “So are you destroying your entire relationship with them or not? I’m close to losing them, but probably not.”
A petite but growing number support the idea
Still, some Republican senators have said they agree with Trump.
“If we have to break it up, let’s break it up,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a close Trump ally, said after breakfast with Trump. “Let’s reduce the number to 51 and let the Senate know that the power must rest with the president to do something. If we don’t do that, we will lose our country. It’s over.”
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said that Trump made “a very compelling case” to senators and that he then spoke with the president about how they might be able to accomplish that.
Johnson said Republicans can’t just sit back and be “idiots” and let Democrats take over if they gain power.
“If you had asked me a few years ago if I would support this, I would have said no,” Johnson said.
Protect minority powers
Trump also called on Republicans to eliminate so-called “blue slips,” a procedure in the Senate Judiciary Committee that allows the minority party to sign lower court judges in their home states. But Thune and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have said the blue slips will remain in place.
Thune said earlier this year that the process allowed him to work with former President Joe Biden’s administration when there was a judicial vacancy in South Dakota and Democrats had the majority in the Senate. “I don’t feel any rush to change it,” Thune said.
Republicans also responded positively to another proposal from Trump delayed last year, when he floated the idea of recess appointments. A day before Thune was chosen as chairman by the GOP conference, Trump posted on social media that the next chairman “must approve” to allow him to make fleeting appointments when the chamber is in recess, avoiding a confirmation vote. The Senate does not allow presidents to make so-called recess appointments because a 2014 Supreme Court ruling circumscribed the president’s power to do so.
However, Trump appeared to drop the idea as Republicans quickly moved his Cabinet picks through the Senate.
More partisanship in nominations
Unlike the legislative filibuster, both parties have dramatically eroded the power to filibuster nominations over the past 15 years.
During President Barack Obama’s term, Democrats lowered the threshold for executive and judicial nominations to 51 votes, except for the Supreme Court, as Republicans blocked many of Obama’s nominees. Then, during Trump’s first term, Republicans lowered the hurdle for a majority on the Supreme Court, confirming his three picks.
But the legislative filibuster has so far remained untouched.
“The filibuster has been a bulwark over the years against really bad things happening to the country,” Thune said earlier this month.
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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Lisa Mascaro, Joey Cappelletti and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
