House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., once again stood firm in support of keeping the filibuster in the Senate, telling reporters Monday that the topic came up in conversation with President Donald Trump over the weekend.
On multiple occasions, Trump has called for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to nix the filibuster so that Republicans can reopen the government; multiple times, Thune, Johnson, and other Republicans have said that’s not a good idea.
At issue is that it takes 60 votes to pass the continuing resolution and end the government shutdown. Without the filibuster, Republicans would have the required 50 votes to pass the stopgap funding bill and reopen the government.
“I understand desperate times call for desperate measures; I also understand that traditionally, we’ve seen that as an important safeguard,” Johnson told reporters Monday.
“I obviously shared my thoughts with the president on that,” Johnson continued.
“As much as I have wanted to blow up the filibuster sometimes, as a House member, when we were not getting what we wanted done in our agenda, I hear my Senate Republican colleagues — some of the most conservative people in Congress — who say it’s an important safeguard.
“It prevents us, it holds us back from the Democrats’ worst impulses.”
Johnson warned that Democrats have already shown their hand on what would happen if the filibuster were abolished — they would move to pack the Supreme Court, make Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states, curb Second Amendment rights, and take federal control of elections.
Thune on Monday said the votes aren’t there to nuke the filibuster.
Further, he, too, is against removing it.
Trump on Saturday told Republicans to not “be weak and stupid” and nuke the filibuster.
He also called for ending the filibuster in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday.
But Thune last week called it a “bad idea,” and Johnson, too, has repeatedly pushed back.
“If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it,” Johnson told reporters Friday.
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