Senate Majority Leader John Thune is on a collision course with President Donald Trump over nixing a longstanding legislative tool to end the 36-day government shutdown.
Thune, who pledged to defend the filibuster on Day One of his leadership tenure, reiterated on Wednesday that Republicans would not scrap the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to end the shutdown. The majority leader argued that allowing most legislation to pass at a simple majority threshold would help Democrats enact a far-left agenda the next time they wield power in Washington. He also added that Republicans simply do not have the votes to scrap the filibuster.
“The practical reality of it is … that there just aren’t the votes in the Senate, and for that matter, not even close,” Thune told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a sit-down interview on Wednesday.
Thune had just returned from a breakfast meeting with Trump and GOP lawmakers at the White House during which the president publicly implored Republicans’ to kill the procedural rule to reopen the government. Trump added that with the filibuster’s elimination, Republicans could “pass legislation at levels you’ve never seen before” and could boost the party during the midterms following a less than stellar electoral performance on Tuesday evening.
Though Thune said he did not directly respond to the president’s remarks during the meeting, the majority leader shared that he’s had half a dozen conversations with Trump about the filibuster over the past several weeks.
Thune believes that nuking the procedural tool would give Democrats their preferred outcome to end the shutdown. He says he is also thinking about how the filibuster’s elimination would affect Republicans the next time they find themselves in the minority.
“There’s a real concern among Senate Republicans that if that [the filibuster’s elimination] ever happens, they do not want to be the ones that were responsible for opening the door to allow the Democrats to pack the Supreme Court, allow for abortion on demand and federalizing elections,” Thune said, characterizing Democrats’ likely legislative agenda as a “long list of horribles.”
When asked whether the legislative filibuster would still be in place — with no carveouts — until the start of the new Congress in January 2027, Thune replied, “Yeah.”
Thune said he understands the president’s frustration that Democrats have chosen to hold the government hostage for over a month with no immediate resolution in sight.
A majority of Democrats have filibustered a clean bipartisan spending bill to fund the government 14 times since the end of September. Senate Republicans would be able to fund the government on their own if the legislative filibuster were eliminated.
“I think that’s what the President’s reacting to … these people aren’t going to do anything that I want to do, even if it’s in their best interest, because of their blind hatred for him and his administration,” Thune said.
However, Thune is confident that nixing the filibuster to end the shutdown is not the right response to end the short-term problem of the funding the government. If the Senate’s 60-vote threshold was singularly eliminated for appropriations bills to end the shutdown, Thune believes it will soon be jettisoned for everything else too.
“Once that door is opened, the horse is out of the barn,” Thune said. “There’s … no putting the genie back in the bottle.”
Though a handful of GOP senators have signaled their willingness to weaken — or fully eliminate — the filibuster following the president’s pressure campaign, a majority of Republicans appear to be in agreement with Thune that the votes aren’t there.
“It only takes third grade math to figure out that if you’ve got 15 or more members that are dug in, it”s not going to happen,” retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters on Wednesday.
“I don’t think the votes exist,” Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said. “What would be interesting is how the Democrats vote.”
Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a majority of Democrats attempted to weaken the filibuster to pass so-called voting rights legislation in 2022, only to be rebuffed by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Neither senator chose to run for reelection in 2024.
Thune said the maverick duo told him that at least eight other Democrats were in private opposition to eliminating the filibuster at the time, but were fearful of retribution from the party’s base.
“They didn’t want to be the ones that took the spear as long as they [Manchin and Sinema] were willing to take it,” Thune said.
Though Thune is sure nearly all Democrats would oppose nuking the filibuster under the current Republican trifecta, he left open the possibility that the caucus might once again be divided on the issue upon retaking Senate control.
Trump appeared to concede on Wednesday that he is short of the necessary votes needed to nuke the filibuster with the Republican conference.
“I’m going to go by your wishes. You’re very smart people. We’re good friends,” Trump told Republican lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday. “But I think it’s a tremendous mistake. It would be a tragic mistake.”
Caden Olson and Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report.
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