It’s a good thing for Senate Majority Leader John Thune that his caucus had already left Washington when President Donald Trump demanded they eliminate the filibuster.
“THE CHOICE IS CLEAR — INITIATE THE “NUCLEAR OPTION,” GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” he posted in all caps late Thursday evening on Truth Social.
This will be the ultimate test for Senate Republicans in a time when Trump has demanded unflinching loyalty. The question is: Are they willing to irrevocably break the Senate to do that.
As Inside Washington broke down last week, some Republicans in the House and Senate had begun to float eliminating the 60-vote threshold.
Senate GOP leadership has resisted the temptation. In 2022, The Independent spoke to Thune who was then the Republican whip. Democrats had just failed to pass a carve-out of the filibuster to pass a new version of the Voting Rights Act. When asked whether Republicans would ever ditch it, he pointed to the fact that Republicans under Mitch McConnell resisted the temptation to do so after the GOP failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Now, once again, Trump is demanding to nuke the filibuster, this time to avoid negotiating with Democrats on salvaging the Covid-era enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplace.
Up until now, Democrats have voted against continuing resolutions to keep the government open on the grounds they see it as their one chance to extend the subsidies.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats have said that this would require Trump’s intervention, especially since Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the House out of session. But Trump has refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.
An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll showed that a plurality of 45 percent of Americans blame Trump and Republicans in Congress for the shutdown while only 33 percent blame Democrats. That likely weighs on Trump, especially as Democrats are set to run the table in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey.
But it will be just the latest move seeing just how far Trump can push Senate Republicans. Republicans have largely wanted to keep the filibuster because, for the most part, they can achieve their most popular policy goals like tax cuts through budget reconciliation, which allows them to avoid a filibuster as long as legislation relates to federal spending.
McConnell’s decision to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees–which came after Democrats eliminated it for lower court and cabinet officials–means they can fill the courts while avoiding third rail policies like touching Social Security and Medicare or passing unpopular policies like an abortion ban.
By contrast, most of Democrats’ policy goals–from immigration reform to codifying abortion rights to voting rights to statehood for Washington, DC to paid family to a $15 minimum wage–cannot pass because of the filibuster, which is why they want to eliminate it, even as they use it to block government spending bills.
But we’ve seen Trump force through what was once unthinkable during his second term. And he’s shown that he can bend the Senate to his will multiple times.
Just this week, Republicans mostly fell in line to preserve Trump’s tariffs. In a vote against the tariffs against Brazil, only five Republicans–Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and McConnell–joined Democrats.
In a second vote to oppose tariffs on Canada, every one of those same Republicans except Tillis joined Democrats and the same went for a resolution opposing Trump’s global tariffs.
And despite the fact Republicans are not too pleased about Trump’s pledge to import beef from Argentina, Republicans from cattle ranching states have done little but send some strong words toward the White House.
It’s part of a larger pattern. Trump forced Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a survivor of sexual assault and a veteran, vote to have Pete Hegseth, who faced an allegation of sexual assault he denied and had opposed women in combat, lead the Pentagon.
He forced Sen. Bill Cassidy, a gastroentrologist who had voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6, to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. And he and Thune got Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who treasured her independence from the GOP, to vote for his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” despite her objections to it.
And when Republicans fall too out of line, they’ve been forced to retire, as was the case with Tillis and Ernst.
There are still plenty of old-school Senate Republicans who might balk at killing the filibuster and who will rightly argue that it’s the one thing keeping the Senate from turning into the Thunderdome that is the House of Representatives.
But all it takes are enough Republicans with a battering ram from the president to eventually pummel Republican leadership into submission. And the Senate has given him no reason to see they won’t tell him “yes” again.
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