President Donald Trump has been raging that Republicans must go nuclear and end the filibuster, but Senate Republicans say that’s not going to happen.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune shut down the president’s increasingly desperate demand after GOP senators had breakfast with Trump on Wednesday.
“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump declared before a room of lawmakers. “If you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape.”
But soon after their face-to-face gathering, Thune said Trump did not have enough support.
“I know where math is on this issue in the Senate. It’s just not happening,” he told reporters.
Trump, 79, spent a lot of his remarks on Wednesday morning rambling about the Senate procedure that requires 60 votes to end debate and pass legislation.
Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, which has prevented them from passing bills without the support of some Democrats.
GOP lawmakers have argued that ending the filibuster would open the door to Democrats quickly being able to pass a series of legislative priorities as soon as they return to the majority, which is why they don’t want to set the precedent and go nuclear.
However, Trump has become increasingly obsessed with his demands as the government shutdown breaks a record as the longest in U.S. history.
“REPUBLICANS, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER! GET BACK TO PASSING LEGISLATION AND VOTER REFORM!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday night as Republicans took a beating in a series of off-year elections.
It was one in a series of posts Trump has fired off, many of them in all caps, in which he urged Republicans to move forward with the power grab.
Multiple GOP senators have repeatedly told the Daily Beast they did not support it and warned it would hurt Republicans if the shoe were on the other foot.
When Trump made his in-person appeal to lawmakers on Wednesday morning, he argued that going nuclear would help Republicans take control forever.
“If we do what I’m saying… [Democrats] will most likely never retain power because we’ll have passed every single thing that you could imagine that is good,” Trump declared.
But according to attendees who were there for Trump’s filibuster-busting pitch, the room was “eerily silent” and “uncomfortable’ as the president put the pressure on them, Axios reported.
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