In a post on Truth Social, Trump wants to end the government shutdown by getting rid of the filibuster. 
Truth Social Details
I just got back from Asia where I met the Leaders of many Countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and others. It was a Great Honor to meet them but, more particularly, to see that America is respected again — RESPECTED LIKE NEVER BEFORE! Great Trade Deals were made, Long Term relationships now exist, and money is pouring into our Country because of Tariffs and, frankly, the Landslide Results of the 2024 Presidential Election. The one question that kept coming up, however, was how did the Democrats SHUT DOWN the United States of America, and why did the powerful Republicans allow them to do it? The fact is, in flying back, I thought a great deal about that question, WHY?
Majority Leader John Thune, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, are doing a GREAT job, but the Democrats are Crazed Lunatics that have lost all sense of WISDOM and REALITY. It is a sick form of the now “legendary” Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that only comes from losing too much. They want Trillions of Dollars to be taken from our Healthcare System and given to others, who are not deserving — People who have come into our Country illegally, many from prisons and mental institutions. This will hurt American citizens, and Republicans will not let it happen. It is now time for the Republicans to play their “TRUMP CARD,” and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW! Just a short while ago, the Democrats, while in power, fought for three years to do this, but were unable to pull it off because of Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Never have the Democrats fought so hard to do something because they knew the tremendous strength that terminating the Filibuster would give them. They want to substantially expand (PACK!) the United States Supreme Court, make Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico States (Thereby automatically picking up 4 Senate seats, many House seats, and at least 8 Electoral Votes!), and many other highly destructive things. Well, now WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying “SHUT DOWN.” If the Democrats ever came back into power, which would be made easier for them if the Republicans are not using the Great Strength and Policies made available to us by ending the Filibuster, the Democrats will exercise their rights, and it will be done in the first day they take office, regardless of whether or not we do it. In addition to all of the other things we would get, such as the best Judges, the best U.S. Attorneys, the best of everything, this was a concept from years ago of then President Barack Hussein Obama and former Majority Leader Harry Reid in order to take advantage of the Republicans. Now I want to do it in order to take advantage of the Democrats….
CNN reports Trump calls for end of Senate filibuster to break funding stalemate
President Donald Trump on Thursday urged congressional Republicans to unilaterally end the government shutdown by eliminating the Senate filibuster — urging them to take an unprecedented step that GOP leaders have firmly opposed until now.
Top GOP lawmakers have long argued for keeping that threshold in place, asserting that the filibuster benefits Republicans — and will serve as a key safeguard against Democrats passing transformative legislation the next time they’re in power.
The filibuster rule is unique to the Senate, and it gives the minority the power to block a bill from coming up for a vote as long as at least 41 senators oppose it. Since one party rarely wins more than 60 seats, proponents have argued that the filibuster encourages compromise and makes it more difficult to enact massive partisan reforms.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this month ruled out changing the Senate rules to end the shutdown, calling the filibuster “something that’s been a bulwark against a lot of really bad things happening with the country.”
But Trump on Thursday appeared to abruptly change course, arguing that Republicans should take advantage of their Senate majority to end the filibuster and reopen the government.
The Senate is not slated to return to Washington until Monday evening, putting lawmakers just days away from breaking the 35-day mark for the longest-ever government shutdown.
Critical food aid for tens of millions of Americans is slated to end over the weekend. The White House on Thursday also sought to highlight the stress that the shutdown is putting on air traffic controllers by convening a roundtable of airline industry representatives and union leaders.
Time to Kill the Filibuster?
Can Trump Get 51 Senate Votes?
A simple majority can kill the filibuster but Trump does not seem to have the votes.
The Wall Street Journal comments on the Filibuster Showdown.
Government funding lapsed on Oct. 1 after a stopgap spending bill passed by the Republican-led House fell five votes short of the 60 needed in the Senate. Since then, Democrats have blocked the bill more than a dozen times, saying they won’t provide the votes to reopen until Republicans negotiate a deal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act health-insurance subsidies.
The standoff has frustrated many Senate Republicans, prompting some to float the idea of ending the filibuster rather than continuing to try to reach a deal with Democrats.
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) and other GOP senators have promised to protect the filibuster. Thune said last week it would be a “bad idea” to kill the rule to end the shutdown. Last fall, before the presidential election, Thune said Senate Republicans would have to resist calls from Trump to nuke the filibuster, “and I hope that he understands that.”
Some Republicans have said the increasing hardships for Americans hit by the shutdown could force action. Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said he would consider changes to the filibuster to end the impasse, citing the impending lapse in food stamps for more than 40 million people and uncertainty around pay for troops.
“I just can’t stand by and say, ‘OK, well, fine. I’m fine with that.’ I’m not fine with that,” he said in a recent interview.
Still, more than four Republican senators—enough to block unilateral changes to the filibuster if all Democrats also voted no—said in interviews with the Journal over the past month that they don’t support ending the filibuster to end the shutdown.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) said last week he doesn’t believe there would be the Republican votes in the Senate to eliminate the filibuster. The Senate has 53 Republicans, and it would take 51 votes to change the rule.
“The filibuster is not going away this Congress,” Tillis said, not even if Trump called for it.
“I will never support ending the filibuster, and I think Republicans have made that very clear,” he said.
“I’m not changing the filibuster,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska). “Absolutely not,” said Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.).
“It’s a nonstarter,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas). “We’re not going to destroy the Senate in order to give the Democrats what they want, OK? Because that’s exactly what they want, is to destroy the filibuster.”
Now that Trump has chimed in, will Thune, Tillis, and Murkowski back down?
In 1980 during the Carter Administration, AG Civiletti ruled the 1884 Antideficiency Act to require non-essential government activities to shut down with lapses in government funding that was an overruling of the Comptroller General’s interpretation. Thus, shutting down the government is purely an executive branch interpretation of an old law and not being done with congressional direction or any interpretation by the courts. Trump could end this in a nano second with an EO
My vote is to keep the filibuster and deeply respect Majority Leader Thune for standing on principle. He is one of the few Republicans to stand up to Trump. No matter what party is in power the filibuster forces the parties to negotiate and that is what we want. Contrary to the bluster of our President the country generally likes divided government. As he would say, we love a good deal. So please find a vacant conference room and start talking.
@ Mish
> Trump Wants to End the Shutdown
At the very minimum, please use the phrase “claims to want”.
No one knows what a POTUS actually wants except the think tanks that direct policy. The rest of us are guessing.
Especially with the current farce, it’s a crapshoot whether he says what he wants or not.
Let one or more billionaires of this country step in and keep afloat gov.critical departments-SNAP,TSA,air controllers etc….They got rich after all by gov.hands out…subsidies,bails out,tax incentives etc…..If none of them volunteer,then let King Trump step in and tax them all just 10% of them net worth…this will be a lot of money to keep critical department for a long time..
Yup can spend 180 million on an election. Does not want to pay a dime in taxes.
Makes me wonder how much they gain from buying politicians.
I think that the Adelsons have done very well with their political donations to Republican candidates in recent years. Sheldon has passed on but Miriam continues to be a big donor.
The Adelsons purchased congress and outlawed online poker. I’ll never forgive them, I hope Sheldon’s passing was extremely painful and he took a long time dying, I wish the same for Miriam. And today you can bet as much as you want on online sports betting sites but still can’t play online poker except as a resident of a few states that have connected casinos.
A real dictator would simply arrange for a couple of ‘accidental deaths.’ Conclusion: Trump is not a dictator, despite the media opining.
You think Epstein really killed himself? You think Trump’s ex-wife really “fell down the stairs”?
oh hell no!
Lol. Trump wants more power since that might be easier than negotiating or getting 60 votes. I say let him have it. Trump will wreck the whole thing at some point. And like always a Democrat or moderate will have to clean up a mess left by Republicans.
The only draw back to that plan is he might not leave.
Trust me he’s going to leave, his age and health will see to that but maybe a foreign country will send him a drone first. I really doubt he will finish his this term.
Timmy, please come back. Xi supports u. Trump is too difficult and unpredictable. The Just no Trump crowd is growing. Change the supreme court. Change PR and DC. Do good things with Mamdani: next week Mamdani is taking over NYC.
the term nuclear option makes me LOL. amerikans are such drama queens. kind of like calling health insurance “UNIVERSAL”. yea sure, get a colonoscopy on neptune or sirius star.
During the mentally ill president it was all about climate change, the wind, the sun and woke. In 2006 blue collar workers on a deep sea rig, working 12hr/shift, were making between $250K/Y and $500K/Y. Today: 50% off. New oil reserves that were discovered and abandoned during the mentally ill era are back on, ex capex which was done.
Mish you deserve every cent and molecule of grace that your thoughtful well put together articles attract utter gutter racists and brain dead redhats like this guy. I don’t know how you do it.
I didn’t know that u don’t like my comments.
To the down voters, why, exactly, is he wrong? Or don’t you like ‘facts’?
I unhid his comments just to see. I think the problems are twofold:
– It’s OT with an “OT” notice. Might annoy some people. Though maybe not enough justification to down vote.
– It’s hard to guess his point. Is this “defense of trump because biden was bad”? Many people, myself included, find this tedious. By now, the new admin has broken enough things and promises of its own that the “but what about the last guy” excuse is only for cultists.
– It’s a dumb observation. Like the workers’ salaries themselves, hydrocarbon company market caps dropped precipitously as fracking destroyed margins. Yeah, it sucks for the workers. But that’s still better money than most. And what happens when robots take those jobs — will Engel blame the POTUS for that too (if it’s a D admin)??
Frankly, Engel’s comments remind me of an LLM with less than 12B parameters and the temperature set too high.
The nuclear option isn’t really an Artsy Deal…
but Trump is more of a King Maker…
than a Deal Maker.
How can anyone anywhere respect America or Americans, we elected a mentally ill old man with increasing dementia and continue to allow him to destroy our country. When this nightmare ends America will be universally hated and we may never recover.
You are 4 years late on that comment. If you made that comment anytime during the Biden years I will apologize to you.
If you agreed with what went on in this country the last 4 years well then take a bow you helped elect Trump you just might be, maybe a little to high on your horse to understand that.
It is a little off when you say the last 4 years. Trump has been in power for almost 1 year now.
Within a year or so of being elected, it was obvious that Biden was not capable of the job.
The rest of the world was aware. The US media ignored it. This is why Trump won the election. Biden was incapable, and so was Kamala. Instead of criticizing Trump, criticize the Democrat party and the media.
One example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4a0qr3NlcU
Reply also to David
I was aware that Biden wasn’t up to job when he was in Congress let alone POTUS. He should have never been the elite Democrats choice. It was the elite that put him on the ticket. Trump’s first term any white male could have won. A female person of color would have to be brilliant and beautiful to even have a chance. That is one of the many reasons the American empire is dying and this century will belong to the Chinese.
ok. fair enough. So the 4 years of the so called Biden Presidency.
Now does that change anything?
And do you or anyone hear believe Biden was running the country lets say the last 2 years of his presidency?
You might not know it since I pretty much just bash trump these days. But IMO this is completely true.
Actually…maybe pokercat was writing ironically and omitted the sarc tag to test our powers of interpretation.
No surprise that King Chaos prefers the unilateral route.
Or that bad ideas are now presented as good.
Unprecedented selfish stupidity should be unpresidented.
to undue the filibuster would the most glorious gift democrats could hope for. It is progressive reforms that get blocked the most when democrats power by the filibuster. GOP policies like tax cuts are easy to pass in reconcilliation. single payer health care is squashed by the filibuster. Not only that but then the dramatic rise in premiums is solely at the feet of the GOP, so a political disaster. Only someone as simple as Trump could railroad his own presidency – and all for what? Liberal tears? More like liberal cheers.
Do you honestly think the healthcare lobby will let a single-payer system be passed?
You assume single-payer would reduce costs.
The greatest reductions in cost will occur through competition. We need ’00s of payers, all seeking customers and profits. All innovating healthcare.
NOT A GREAT GOVERNMENT SLUG and DEI
I’d so love to replace all these transfer-payment programs with a single UBI. We would be far better served completely decentralizing the buying decisions in every market: healthcare, education, housing, food.
I’d also love to re-enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. Something we stopped doing 40+ years ago, except for token reviews.
the party players cannot seem to recall they are representatives of the will of the people. they have a job not for personal reasons.
Dude, reality is calling, are you there? The politicians are our enemies. Instead of working for us, they get rich off corporations and theatrically play the blame game. Can you honestly not see that? Look out the ivory tower windows once a week at least.
What is the will of the people at present?
Just let the shutdown continue to the bitter end. Democrats are by far the majority of government workers and they will hurt the most. The Democrats in the Senate desperately need a win but chose the wrong hill to die upon so let them die on it if they don’t want to vote a clean bill.
And the longer the shutdown goes on, the less time Congress has to address the Dem manufactured Obamacare premium spike that’s looming for 40M+ Americans.
Hang that on your door, Schumer.
I wonder if the down-voters are aware of the premium issue? Obamacare pays vast subsidies to the insurance companies that are about to expire.
If it wasn’t so funny, it would be sad. Low income people will truly suffer.
The Senate is already a grossly undemocratic institution whereby one person’s vote in say Wyoming is “worth” more than seventy people’s votes in California. The filibuster is the last bastion of compromise that is still left in this country. It makes sense to have it and maintain it.
The founders meant for the Senate to be the deliberative body in our system of checks and balances and the filibuster was set up precisely in order to make sure this concept endures. As an ignorant fool, DJT has no concept how any of this works and why.
You criticize the Senate for being undemocratic and then defend it for voting in an undemocratic way.
Perfect response!
Whenever folks discuss electoral college or the composition of the Senate being archaic they forget that the same reasons and principles that led to its inclusion then, which were REQUIRED to form a union of dissimilar states into this republic of ours, are still present today. Why would Wyoming want to be a part of a republic that would surely and instantly push them around such that they had virtually no say. Answer: They wouldn’t.
As much as the filibuster is a problem, I’ve always said that folks need to remember it’s highly likely their party won’t always be in charge, be mindful.
Harry Reid (followed by Mitch McConnell expanding it) made that move and Trump had no issues getting his 3 judicial picks through as a result, when the Senate had a simple majority for him in his first term. Should Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito opt to retire before Trump exits office he’ll have a chance to replace them with younger conservative justices as the Senate is expected to hold its R majority.
If the filibuster were removed though, a LOT of things would be put in front of President Trump in the next year that otherwise would have had no chance of seeing the light of day, so both parties oughta start working for their paycheck, get the government back working…..or hell, let’s have more fuloughs and argue about whether they can be permanently reduced via the Executive. This notion of F(ing)AF(ing)O is getting tiresome but it mirrors where we are at economically, socially, politically, culturally.
As I said in my response above, it is not unreasonable to have some factor in the system to maintain some balance between geography and demography. It is unreasonable for that factor to be 70x.
Andorra (population 82,000) and India (population 1.4 billion) both get one vote in the UN General Assembly. China (1.3 B) and the UK (69 million) both have one vote in the Security Council. Life’s not fair.
Irrelevant. The UN is not a democracy and does not purport to be one.
Neither is the US and doesn’t purport to be.
In a fairer world, France would be kicked off of the Security Council, with its place taken by India.
Am I wrong in thinking that the House and Senate have different functions?
The Senate was designed to give more influence to small states relative to their population (2 members per state). The House’s membership was based on population size, with a minimum of one House member per state. It was a compromise.
For me, the electoral college serves one purpose beyond the others that makes it invaluable: isolating electoral fraud to the states where it occurs.
Then again, that might be a Maginot Line. With electronic voting machines deployed everywhere, voting is “audited” not by many thousands of volunteers but by a handful of IT people. When fraud requires fewer bribes, I expect it to increase.
If the body doesn’t fairly represents the population then it doesn’t really matter how it votes for it to be undemocratic.
And I understand the need to balance demography and geography and therefore it is not unreasonable for there to be some skew towards geography, but 70x skew is kind of insane.
Given this inherent issue, slightly raising the bar on the threshold needed to pass a vote is a reasonable approach. It’s not like some kind of unelected entity making decisions (which would be undemocratic). Here, an elected entity is voting but a larger majority is required.
It is more basic than that. It is to make sure that a group of populous states do not do something like sell a troublesome state to Canada or Uruguay. Who knows? In a hundred years Wyoming might have more people than California for all we know so they made the states equal in the Senate.
Sadly, most people do not understand the reason for bicameral government as another check/balance.
Education in the US is dismal!
::facepalm::
The senate is absolutely democratic in that a simple majority rules for passing most of its actions.
The United States is a representative republic, not a democracy. At its inception, the goal was for a federal government to loosely tie the confederation of states together, with that unit of government (states) all being equal within the U.S. Senate.
he talks a big game but he is deeply unpopular. and the republicans will lose voters if they dont do something here for the little guy
Just because you think that doesn’t make it true.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/10/28/cnns_enten_shutdown_not_helping_democrats_in_polls.html
Biden did a lot for the little guy… like?
The smart move for Democrats is to take the leadership in reducing the Federal debt/deficit.
Don’t be deceived. Trump is worried, and Trump always chickens out. The way to avoid/destroy the need for filibuster is to discern and craft legislation that creates a true thirdness greater oneness of the problematic habit of mere orthodoxy/partisanship which it is supposed to prevent…and changing the monetary paradigm is one such example because it resolves obsessive dualism/partisanship with a true thirdness greater oneness. Wisdom has always been associated with “the third resolving way” and Wisdomics-Gracenomics is the whole new policy program.
WTF is this: “…a true thirdness greater oneness of the problematic habit of mere orthodoxy/partisanship..”
Perhaps,
The orthodoxical partnership of greatness is the oneness of problematic habits, not merely a true thirdness.
Would it not require 60 votes to forever end the filibuster?
Of course not or we wouldn’t be discussing it right? Recall Harry Reid started this in 2013 by having a simple Democrat majority change it for all non-SCOTUS appointments. Mitch McConnell used a simple majorityy to remove it for the last appointment level, SCOTUS.
This is not a nomination. And several Republican senators have expressed opposition to ending the filibuster for appropriation bills. They would also have to address Senate Rule XVI (maybe others as well), which would open doors the Nuclear Option has never opened before.
You either didn’t read or didn’t understand this part of Mish’s article: “A simple majority can kill the filibuster”
There is no simple majority to end the filibuster on an appropriations bill. I doubt they would have 40 votes for that.
Taco was almost “too late” on this capitulation.
One of the stupidest things Trump has ever proposed
That would be a big mistake by Repubs. This is exactly what the demoncrats want.
Maybe, but it will eventually be ended anyway – whether by Reps or Dems.
The so-called “nuclear” option.
I predicted a couple weeks ago that the shutdown would end without an extension of ACA subsidies. Just a gut feeling of mine based on the history of previous shutdowns.
This could be the way it ends.