After Voters Chastise Trump, He Demands End to Filibuster to Pass Suppression Laws

Voters sent President Donald Trump a clear message Tuesday, electing Democrats across the nation by historic margins after 11 months of chaos and cruelty since his return to office.

Speaking at a White House breakfast with Senate Republicans, Trump responded by calling on lawmakers to smooth a path for voter suppression measures. 

“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump said. “We should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting.”

“We should pass all the things that we want to pass to make our election secure and safe,” he added.

Democrats won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey by wide margins Tuesday, and expanded their control of Virginia’s House of Delegates to at least 61 of its 100 seats, with many tight races left to be called. Trump also suffered proxy losses in Pennsylvania’s judicial retention elections, Maine voters’ rejection of a referendum to limit mail-in ballots, and California’s approval of a congressional redistricting to neutralize the partisan gains from Texas Republicans’s mid-decade gerrymander. 

Tuesday night, Trump said on Truth Social that the GOP lost because he wasn’t on the ballot, and called for Republicans to game the electoral system in their favor while they still have power. 

“Pass Voter Reform, Voter ID, No Mail-In Ballots. Save our Supreme Court from “Packing,” No Two State addition, etc. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER! ! !” Trump posted.

The day after, Trump summed up Tuesday’s results succinctly. “I don’t think it was good for Republicans.”

Trump went on to warn the GOP Senators before him that, unless they act now, Democrats will themselves end the filibuster to pack the Supreme Court and recognize D.C. and Puerto Rico as states. 

“They’re going to pick up electoral votes, it’s going to be a very, very bad situation,” Trump said. “Now, if we do what I’m saying, they’ll most likely never attain power, because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine.”

The election changes Trump seeks would make it harder for Americans to cast ballots, disproportionately affecting older and poorer voters. 

To do that, Trump has been pressuring Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R- S.D.) to scrap the filibuster, which requires most legislation to get a 3/5th majority to pass in the Senate, and end the now record-setting government shutdown without any concessions to Democrats. Democrats have withheld support for government funding bills in an attempt to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies, which will lead to massive spikes in healthcare costs for millions of Americans. 

But Thune and other Republicans are wary, noting that the filibuster, like any procedural rule that makes it harder to pass laws, is inherently conservative. The Senate GOP did do away with the filibuster on approving executive nominees in batches earlier this year, following a pattern of steady erosion to the rule over the past dozen years. 

Trump attempted to require documentary proof of citizenship and a ban on late-arriving mail-in ballots with his March executive order, but courts quickly blocked those provisions, noting the president has no authority to dictate how elections are run. House Republicans also passed the SAVE Act earlier this year, which would require voter ID, but the promise of a Democratic filibuster has kept it from advancing in the Senate. 

Trump singled out California in his remarks. The Golden State adopted Prop 50, which authorizes the redrawing of California’s congressional maps to offset partisan gerrymandering in other states, by wide margins Tuesday, with the results announced immediately after polls closed thanks in part to the state’s robust mail-in voting system.

“California is a disaster,” Trump continued. “Many of the states are disasters.”