{"id":254297,"date":"2025-11-01T09:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T09:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/254297\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T09:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T09:59:16","slug":"top-republican-rebuffs-trump-calls-to-scrap-filibuster-rule-in-shutdown-standoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/254297\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Republican rebuffs Trump calls to scrap filibuster rule in shutdown standoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

The top Republican in the US Senate has pushed back on Donald Trump’s call to scrap the chamber’s filibuster rule in a bid to end the ongoing government shutdown, now entering its 30th day.<\/p>\n

The filibuster is a long-standing rule requiring 60 of the 100 members to approve most legislation. With a 53-47 majority, removing the rule would allow Republicans to pass a funding bill without Democratic support.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now time for the Republicans to play their \u2018TRUMP CARD,\u2019 and go for what is called the Nuclear Option – Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW,\u201d Trump wrote on social media. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his opposition to doing that remains “unchanged”.<\/p>\n

The shutdown, which began on 1 October, has left millions of Americans facing the loss of essential services. <\/p>\n

If it continues into the weekend, more than 40 million people could have lost<\/a> access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which provides food aid to low-income households, <\/p>\n

On Friday, however, a federal judge in Rhode Island blocked the Trump administration from halting that food aid, arguing that doing so would likely be unlawful. <\/p>\n

Thousands of federal workers have already missed pay cheques, and there are growing fears of increased flight delays as air traffic controllers and airport staff work without pay.<\/p>\n

Thune has previously rejected calls to change the filibuster rule to end the shutdown. <\/p>\n

“Leader Thune’s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged,” Ryan Wrasse, Thune’s communications director, said in a statement to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. <\/p>\n

Lawmakers from both political parties have long expressed concerns that scrapping it would erode a key safeguard for the minority party.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, now WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying \u2018SHUT DOWN,\u2019\u201d Trump wrote in a social media post late on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

By Friday, most senators had left Washington for the weekend, with little sign of progress towards reopening the government. <\/p>\n

It remains unclear whether there is enough support within the Senate to invoke what is known as the “nuclear option” and eliminate the filibuster.<\/p>\n

In recent years, both parties have chipped away at filibuster’s reach.<\/p>\n

During former President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, some Democrats suggested ending the filibuster to enshrine abortion access and protect voting rights, but it did not get sufficient support within the party. <\/p>\n

The senate has already made exceptions so that some nominees, including judicial appointments, only need a simple majority vote for confirmation. But most legislation remains subject to the 60-vote threshold.<\/p>\n

Many Republicans fear that ending the filibuster could backfire if Democrats regain control of Congress.<\/p>\n

The shutdown went into effect on 1 October after Democrats refused to support a stopgap measure to keep the government open until mid-November, unless Republicans agreed to extend healthcare subsidies for low-income Americans.<\/p>\n

Republicans have resisted, accusing Democrats of holding the government hostage over unrelated policy priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The top Republican in the US Senate has pushed back on Donald Trump’s call to scrap the chamber’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-254297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}