“Without the filibuster this country would've been gone a long time ago,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch. “I'm gonna talk to him about it. I'll get him back on line.” | Getty GOP senators reject Trump's call to end the filibuster ‘Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!’ Trump tweets.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday seemingly called for an end to the legislative filibuster in the Senate, frustrated that Republicans were unable to include his policy goals in a must-pass spending bill. He also suggested that a government shutdown in September might be “good” in order to accomplish more without interference from Democrats.

Senate Republicans responded by rejecting Trump swiftly and decisively.


"I'm not going to support a change in rules. The Founding Fathers set it up this way," said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who's been in Washington about three weeks longer than Trump. "It's worked for centuries. It can still work. We don't have a rule problem, we've got a people problem."

He and I differ on that because without the filibuster this country would've been gone a long time ago," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the most senior GOP senator. "I'm gonna talk to him about it. I'll get him back on line."

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill managed to avoid the imminent threat of a government shutdown late last week and over the weekend, first passing a stopgap one-week funding bill and then agreeing on a deal to fund the government through the end of September. And the GOP is desperate to avoid a shutdown this year while controlling all levers of Washington.

"I don't think the American people elected President Trump and Republican majorities in both houses to shut down the government. I think they expected us to govern. And that's what we're doing," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

But while Republicans avoided a potentially embarrassing lapse in funding just 100 days into Trump’s administration, the president’s agenda took a beating in the deal, with no money for his long-promised border wall and no crackdown on federal grant money for so-called sanctuary cities. Democrats, especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, swiftly boasted of their wins over Trump, eager to get under his skin.

It seemed to work. At the White House on Tuesday, Trump bashed Democrats for "touting" their victories and laid out his hard-line plan to circumvent any need for future deal-making with the Democrats.

“The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!”

Senate rules can be changed by a majority vote using the unilateral "nuclear option." Over the past four years, the Senate has wiped away the 60-vote standard for nominees after more than a decade of wars over judicial and executive branch nominations.

Trump suggested earlier this year that if Democrats blocked his Supreme Court nominee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should gut the filibuster to approve his high court pick. That's exactly what happened.

McConnell, however, has vowed he would not similarly undo the 60-vote threshold for legislation. Sixty-one senators sent him a letter last month vowing their support for it. And the majority leader opened the GOP's weekly closed-door party lunch on Tuesday by outlining the benefits of the filibuster, including how it had empowered Republicans to stop liberal legislation, according to one person in the room.

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"There is an overwhelming majority — on a bipartisan basis — not interested in changing the way the Senate operates on the legislative calendar," McConnell told reporters Tuesday. "And that will not happen."

Vice President Mike Pence, who attended Tuesday's lunch with Senate Republicans, was also asked about Trump's filibuster tweet and said simply that the message demonstrates Trump's resolve to getting things done in Washington, according to the source.

Still, there is growing frustration among conservatives about Democrats' opposition to Trump's agenda, and many House members have chafed for years at the Senate's limitations. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in an interview that while there is not support for a unilateral rules change on the filibuster right now, that could change by September.

"If Democratic senators continue to abuse the filibuster, I think the political pressure to rein in their abuse will only continue to grow," Cruz said.

But the legislative filibuster has historically been used more to the benefit of conservatives than liberals because of its ability to stop bills. During President Barack Obama's term, for example, the threat of a filibuster stopped a cap-and-trade climate change proposal, while actual filibusters stopped new background checks on guns and an increase in the minimum wage.

"I'd love to get 60 [seats]. But if we don't, we're not going to change the rules," said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "There's no possibility."

Elana Schor contributed to this report.