Trump Says Ending The Senate Filibuster Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ For Republicans

Former President Donald Trump said that any effort to abolish the Senate filibuster would cause irreparable damage to the Republican Party.

Trump discussed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s attempt to fight off talk from progressives to eliminate the longstanding filibuster rule during an interview on the podcast The Truth with Lisa Boothe.

“Look, he’s hanging by a thread right now with respect to the filibuster,” Trump said of McConnell.

“And if they get the filler, he’s hanging on [Democratic Sen.] Joe Manchin, who always goes with the Democrats. Joe talks, but he ends up going with the Democrats. He’s hanging by a thread and if they get rid of the filibuster, if they knock it out, it will be catastrophic for the Republican Party.”

The filibuster rule, a provision that allows the minority party in the upper chamber to force an unfettered debate on any issue before a vote, is not popular among progressive Democrats who want to eliminate it.

“Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin, can even begin, to imagine what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” McConnell said last week. “I want our colleagues to imagine a world where every single task, every one of them, requires a physical quorum.”

The Senate requires 60 votes to end a filibuster and move to a vote. Both parties have 50 senators, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaking vote for Democrats.

Last week, President Joe Biden, who spent more than three decades in the Senate before his presidency, signaled support for the “talking” filibuster.

“You had to stand up and command the floor and you had to keep talking along,” Biden said as he discussed past rules. “Once you stopped talking, you lost that and someone could move in and say, I move to the question of…. You’ve got to work for the filibuster. It is almost getting to the point where democracy is having a hard time functioning.”

Since his recent presidential election loss, Trump has argued with the GOP leadership, saying McConnell is “weak” and the party should seek new leaders who support his policies.

“But if you look at what happened in the election, Mitch McConnell should’ve fought. You know, he did nothing. He should’ve fought. They should’ve fought. That could never have, that could never have happened to a Democrat,” Trump told Boothe on her podcast.

“What happened to us with the presidential election could never have happened to the Democrats. You would have had a revolution if the tables were turned, you would have literally had a revolution. And guys like Mitch McConnell, they don’t fight. And now he’s hanging by a thread. He’s hanging by a thread.”