President Donald Trump has railed against Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), telling the senior Republican in Congress that he should break the filibuster to re-open the federal government.
[NOTE: Breaking the filibuster would mean requiring only 51 votes to move legislation through the Senate, instead of the current 60-vote requirement. But Republicans see great peril in the strategy if and when Democrats regain a majority, peril that has made Thune and other GOP senators reluctant to pursue what’s often called the “nuclear option” — despite Trump’s urging.]
Trump’s call for filibuster busting follows earlier calls for the same action by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has expressed unrelenting frustration with Thune and with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
Greene has derided Johnson for failing to call the House back into session while the shutdown lingers, for failing to swear in newly elected Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), and for appearing to throw obstacles in the way of the release of the Epstein files.
Greene’s House colleague Ted Lieu (D-CA) agrees with the Georgia congresswoman on all these issues, a major sign that Greene, once the most prominent of MAGA voices, has wandered increasingly further from MAGA ideology, as it is being practiced.
(Note: Greene has even said she would not have voted for Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act if she had read the AI provisions in it more carefully.)
As Democrats and Republicans continue to play a shutdown blame game — and with polls showing Republicans generally losing that game — Rep. Lieu suggested on Thursday that breaking the filibuster wasn’t the only way to end what has become the longest federal government shutdown in history.
Lieu said that given the power Trump routinely exerts over the legislature, all the President needs to do is “convene a meeting” and order Thune and Johnson to participate in negotiating a solution, however temporary, to the impasse.
Air traffic controllers are working without pay right now.
Trump could stop this Republican shutdown today by simply convening a meeting with legislative leaders. pic.twitter.com/XauSXuTZrR
— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) November 7, 2025
“Trump could stop this Republican shutdown today by simply convening a meeting with legislative leaders,” Lieu said.
The meeting Lieu asserts Trump could easily order would now have to consider the latest Democratic offer, which is cooperation on re-opening the government based on extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax subsidies for just a single year.
It’s a deal that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says would cost the government less that the Trump administration’s controversial bailout of Argentina, estimated to cost as much as $40 billion.
For context, extending health care tax credits for 1-year costs less than Donald Trump’s $40 billion bailout for Argentina. https://t.co/99RznNVULC
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 7, 2025
At present Trump still prefers pressuring Thune to end the filibuster instead of negotiating, confident that the risky rule-change would deliver such lasting power to the GOP that the party could essentially prevent a future in which Democrats are able to utilize the change and pass their own legislation without appealing to Republicans for support.