In a rambling series of tweets posted Saturday morning, President Donald Trump attacked GOP senators for allowing their Democratic colleagues to “totally control the U.S. Senate,” saying they “look like fools.”
Trump’s tweets, which come on the heels on the Senate’s failure to advance a slimmed down Obamacare repeal bill early Friday morning in one of the chamber’s last-ditch efforts to roll back health reform, call for changing Senate rules to remove the 60-vote threshold for legislation. Trump tweeted that the “very outdated filibuster rule must go” so Republicans are able to better advance their legislative agenda with a 51-vote majority.
Confusingly, however, the president also attacked the budget reconciliation process that allowed Republicans to attempt to repeal major parts of Obamacare with the 51-vote threshold he favors, saying that “budget reconciliation is killing R’s in the Senate.”
Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
The very outdated filibuster rule must go. Budget reconciliation is killing R's in Senate. Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
….8 Dems totally control the U.S. Senate. Many great Republican bills will never pass, like Kate's Law and complete Healthcare. Get smart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
If the Senate Democrats ever got the chance, they would switch to a 51 majority vote in first minute. They are laughing at R's. MAKE CHANGE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017
Trump made a similar appeal for a 51-vote threshold earlier this month after an Obamacare repeal bill failed in the Senate, tweeting that “the Senate must go to a 51 vote majority instead of current 60 votes.”
But it’s unclear that a 51-vote threshold would actually solve Republican Party’s health care struggles. As Senate Republicans have been scrambling to get enough votes to advance Obamacare repeal, multiple pieces of health care legislation put up by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have failed to get 50 votes. Every time an Obamacare repeal measure has failed in the Senate over the past several weeks, it’s been because some Republican lawmakers have also cast votes against it.
Despite Trump’s personal appeal to McConnell—tweeting “Mitch M, go to 51 votes NOW and WIN” — a McConnell aide was quick to confirm to Roll Call that filibuster changes are not likely to happen.
McConnell has been dismissive of Trump’s previous calls to change the filibuster rules. Back in May, when Trump said the 60-vote threshold should be removed to more easily get approval for his proposed border wall, the majority leader said filibuster reform “will not happen,” adding that “there is an overwhelming majority on a bipartisan basis not interested in changing the way the Senate operates on the legislative calendar.”
The president hasn’t always been so eager to get rid of the filibuster. In 2013, after Democratic senators voted to ban filibusters from being used to block President Obama’s nominees for top jobs in his administration, Trump tweeted disapprovingly.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the Senate filibuster rule. Harry Reid & Obama killed it yesterday. Rule was in effect for over 200 years.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2013
Trump has repeatedly blamed a small group of Democratic lawmakers for blocking his party from passing a health care reform bill, even though Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.