WASHINGTON – Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that the Senate’s supermajority threshold for passing legislation will be safe with Republicans controlling the chamber — even if President-elect Donald Trump pushes to kill the filibuster.
“One of the most gratifying results of the Senate becoming Republican: The filibuster will stand,” McConnell said during a news conference at the Capitol.
McConnell opposed a Democratic effort to change the Senate’s filibuster rules in 2022 for the sake of voting rights legislation. He also resisted Trump’s repeated demands, during his first term in the White House, for Senate Republicans to ditch the filibuster.
The filibuster is the Senate’s custom of requiring most legislation to meet a 60-vote threshold before it can clear the 100-member chamber. It’s been a major obstacle for decades, most famously used to block civil rights legislation in the 1960s. The Senate can change its rules with a simple majority vote, however, and Democrats eliminated the 60-vote requirement for most judicial nominees in 2013, prompting Republicans to ditch the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees in 2017.
McConnell is stepping down as leader, but his comments Wednesday signaled Senate Republicans will likely defend the filibuster even if Trump again pushes for reform when he takes office next year. Alluding to past Democratic proposals, McConnell also said Senate Republicans wouldn’t push for Supreme Court ethics rules or for making Washington, D.C., a state.
“I think the filibuster is very secure,” McConnell said.
Notably, Republicans can already approve judicial nominees and tax reform legislation with simple majority votes in the Senate, so no rules change would be needed for two of their top priorities for the next Congress. It’s not clear if Trump plans to ask lawmakers for the billions experts say will be needed for the mass deportation program Trump proposed during the campaign.
McConnell refused to discuss his past disagreements with Trump, whom he said was “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress, but he did allude to his desire for the U.S. to support allies like Ukraine — support that’s drawn skepticism from Trump and other like-minded Republicans.
“I think this is the most dangerous time since right before World War II,” he said. “Our adversaries, the North Koreans, Chinese, Russians, Iran and Iran’s proxies are all talking to each other. They have one thing in common, and they want to diminish our role and world. It may seem old fashioned to some, but I’m still a Reagan Republican who thinks that America’s role in the world is absolutely indispensable.”
Trump and his allies have criticized U.S. support for Ukraine, and Trump has even praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, going so far as to call his invasion of Ukraine a “genius” and “savvy” move. McConnell suggested higher defense spending, however, was worth the investment.
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“It’s a lot cheaper to prevent war than it is to have one. And so that’s the focus I’m going to have for the next couple of years,” he said.
McConnell refused to say whether he would support putting controversial Trump campaign surrogates like Elon Musk or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into Cabinet positions.
“Yeah, I’m not getting into that,” McConnell said.