President Donald Trump is once again urging Republicans to do away with the Senate filibuster, even as leaders in his own party have opposed the idea.
“When is ‘enough, enough’ for our Republican Senators,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning. “There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something which the Lunatic Democrats will do on day one, if they ever get the chance.”
The President cited the ongoing partial government shutdown, which is causing chaos at airports across the U.S., and the restrictive voter identification bill he has aggressively championed that is currently being debated in the Senate. “TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Also, add the complete, all five items, SAVE AMERICA ACT items. Go for the Gold!!!”
“TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!” he said in another Truth Social post a few minutes later.
In a third post that morning, Trump went on to criticize Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who he claimed would try to make a deal with Republicans to end the partial shutdown “because he thinks that if he doesn’t, Republicans will TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, something which they should do whether he makes a deal or not!!!”
It’s not the first time the President has pushed Republicans to end the filibuster, which gives the minority party the ability to delay or block bills by stretching out debate, effectively resulting in most pieces of legislation needing to reach a 60-vote threshold in order to pass.
In October, Trump encouraged lawmakers in his party to “go for what is called the Nuclear Option—Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” which he said would end the full government shutdown that was then occurring. At the time, the shutdown had stretched on for about a month; it went on to become the longest in U.S. history at a total of 43 days.
The current partial shutdown, which began on Feb. 14 amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement, is poised to break that record this weekend, unless Congress can reach a deal before then.
This shutdown, while only affecting the Department of Homeland Security, has once again wreaked havoc on air travel. Travelers have waited for hours in security lines at airports across the country in recent weeks, as terminals are grappling with a shortage of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents. Acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill said on Wednesday that the country is seeing “the highest wait times in TSA history, with some wait times greater than four and a half hours.”
Read More: Why Are Airport Wait Times So Long? The TSA Crisis and ICE’s Involvement, Explained
Some Republicans have expressed support for Trump’s proposal to end the filibuster. In an opinion piece for the Daily Wire, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote, “I’m not sure how things could get much worse by ending the filibuster. The status quo certainly isn’t working. I think it’s obvious things must change—we need a paradigm shift.” Trump shared the opinion piece on his Truth Social page on Thursday morning.
But many members of the party have objected to the idea. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told the Washington Examiner last week that he was against holding a vote to end the filibuster.
“I don’t think that serves anybody’s interest,” he told the news outlet. He has previously said that getting rid of the filibuster would be a “bad idea,” and that “the 60-vote threshold has protected this country.”
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso and Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton, the No. 2 and 3 Republicans in the upper chamber, respectively, have expressed opposition to doing away with the filibuster in the past as well, including during the shutdown in the fall.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has also said she is against ending the filibuster, writing in a statement to the Maine Wire last month that “the filibuster is an important protection for the rights of the minority party, that requires Senators to work together in the best interest of the country.”
“Removing that protection would, for example, allow a future Congress controlled by Democrats to pass provisions on anything they want—DC Statehood, open borders, or packing the Supreme Court—with just a simple majority of Senators,” she said.