Trump urges Republicans to ditch filibuster rule in US Senate

Donald Trump has floated the idea of ending the filibuster – a procedural technique in Congress that allows a minority of senators to block legislation from passing – which would make pushing through his political agenda in 2026 much easier.

In an interview with Politico, the president urged Republicans in the Senate to scrap the filibuster, saying it had become an obstacle to effective governing and removing it would prevent another government shutdown and pave the way for his party to push through its legislative priorities.

“The filibuster is hurting the Republican Party,” Trump told Politico. He called on Republican lawmakers to eliminate it “without question”.

“If you get rid of the filibuster, you’re not going to have a shutdown,” Trump added. “You can do everything. You can do great health care if you get rid of the filibuster. We can do everything we want.”

Scraping the arcane-sounding legislative device is sometimes favored by the party with a majority in the Senate, but opposed by the other because it allows them to use their minority status to block legislation from passing.

Senators typically back off from proposals to end it, because they don’t want to get steamrolled by a simple majority when the balance of power shifts again. Centrists in both parties typically oppose ending the filibuster as a way to defend against partisan political excesses.

For Trump, who has 10 months before the midterm elections to push the Republicans agenda along, including requiring voters to present identification, raising the issue has a more immediate purpose: preventing another government shutdown.

“If you get rid of the filibuster, you’re not going to have a shutdown,” he told the outlet.

Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate to Democrats’ 47, giving them little room to lose members and pass bills with bare majorities. Trump previously called on his party in the Senate to end the filibuster in October so that Republicans could reopen the government without Democratic support.

Republicans did not take up the challenge, leading to a long standoff with Democrats over healthcare costs and paralyzing the government with a 43-day shutdown. But mounting time pressures on the sitting president to push his legislative agenda along could change the calculations.

Elsewhere in Trump’s remarks to Politico, he said he believes the midterm elections will center on “pricing”, an alternative to the Democrats term of “affordability”, which he has said he thinks is a “hoax”. Both terms mean the same thing.

He said he was confident that Americans will be receptive to his message: that he is tidying up a economic mess he inherited from Joe Biden.

“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump told Politico. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down.”

The comments come after two positive economic reports showing that inflation is cooling and the economy is growing more quickly than economists expected. But polls also show that American consumers are feeling economically insecure and pessimistic.