James Downie, in the Washington Post, uses a Trump tweet the same way a lot of other people have, as an example of his ignorance:
On Tuesday morning, Trump called on Republicans to get rid of the filibuster to pass two key pieces of the party’s agenda: “The U.S. Senate should switch to 51 votes, immediately, and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy.” But Senate Republicans are using reconciliation rules to take up the House’s health-care bill, which means they need only 51 votes anyway. GOP leaders plan to use the same process for tax cuts as well. Either Trump has not been told this, or his staff has briefed him on this and he has simply forgotten.
It’s possible that Trump doesn’t understand these issues. But there’s another possibility: Trump is chafing at the constraints that the reconciliation rules impose. It is generally (though not universally) thought that because of the rules, the health-care bill can include fewer regulatory changes than Republicans might otherwise like to see. The reconciliation rules also rule out tax legislation that increases long-run deficits.
Get rid of the filibuster, and you’d also get rid of these reconciliation rules. Both the health-care and tax bills would still have to receive only 51 votes, but they could include a broader set of provisions. Eliminating the constraints of reconciliation might well make it easier to get those 51 votes. Republicans have been divided over passing a “border-adjusted tax” as part of their overall tax reform; a major reason they are considering it is to comply with the no-long-run-deficit-increase rule. Get rid of that rule, and maybe they could drop the border-adjusted tax and win 51 votes.
Would a rules change make passing either health or tax legislation “fast and easy”? Almost certainly not. But it’s not crazy to think that it would make it faster and easier.