Majority leader Mitch McConnell and fellow top Senate Republicans immediately rejected Trump’s Friday call for the use of the so-called nuclear option to pass a short-term spending bill and avoid a government shutdown.
In a Friday morning tweet, Trump called on McConnell to eliminate the legislative filibuster in order to pass a spending bill that would include $5 billion for a border wall without the support of any Democrats.
Mitch, use the Nuclear Option and get it done! Our Country is counting on you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018
Under current Senate rules, Republicans need Democratic support to reach the 60-vote threshold required to avoid a filibuster and pass a spending bill.
“The Leader has said for years that the votes are not there in the Conference to use the nuclear option. Just this morning, several Senators put out statements confirming their opposition, and confirming that there is not a majority in the conference to go down that road,” McConnell’s office said in a statement provided to the Washington Post.
Senator Orrin Hatch, the outgoing chairman of the Finance Committee, responded to Trump’s tweet by explaining that, while it may be advantageous to Republicans in the short term, eliminating the legislative filibuster would have negative long-term ramifications.
Hatch in 2017: “without the filibuster this country would've been gone a long time ago.”https://t.co/Akpu1NA2Ex
— Senator Hatch Office (@senorrinhatch) December 21, 2018
Senator Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), echoed Hatch’s sentiment, arguing that dispensing with the legislative filibuster would damage the institutional integrity of the Senate.
“We have rules to follow. I want to put a stop to this practice of the Senate breaking its rules to change its rules. I will not vote to turn the Senate into a rule-breaking institution and I hope that my colleagues will not,” said Alexander, who plans to retire at the end of the next Congress.
After initially signaling his support for a two week, stopgap spending bill that did not include the $5 billion he initially requested for the wall, Trump reversed himself Wednesday amid backlash from hardline restrictionists and said once again that he would be willing to shut down the government if Democrats don’t accede to his demands. In response, House Republicans passed a seven-week stopgap spending bill and returned it to the Senate, where it will likely be voted down due to unanimous Democratic opposition.