President Donald J. Trump is once again calling on Washington to confront its own dysfunction. The problem is, this time he’s calling for something that many in his base don’t want to happen: the removal of the filibuster.
With the federal government now in its fifth week of shutdown and hundreds of thousands of Americans furloughed or working without pay, Trump is calling on Senate Republicans to eliminate the filibuster—what he calls “the Nuclear Option”—to end the “the Schumer Shutdown.”
Trump’s demand came Thursday in a fiery Truth Social post, where he urged Senate leaders to “play their Trump Card” and stop allowing Democrats to paralyze the government. “It is now time for Republicans to get tough,” he wrote. “End the filibuster. End the shutdown. Get it done now.”
Here’s his post, mildly edited with line breaks:
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?