Trump Is Calling for the ‘Nuclear Option’ to Kill the Filibuster. What’s that Mean?

The peculiar US political phenomenon known as the filibuster is once again in focus. The filibuster is the prerogative enjoyed by the minority party in the Senate to demand never-ending debate to thwart legislation, which must be approved by both that body and the House of Representatives. Filibusters once required senators to stand and speak for hours, but since the 1970s, the mere threat of one has been enough to grind a bill to a halt. Almost all bills are doomed unless supported by the three-fifths supermajority required to end a filibuster. With 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate, President Donald Trump’s Republican Party falls short of that. As a result, it was unable to pass a stopgap funding measure, triggering the first shutdown of the federal government in almost seven years on Oct. 1, 2025.

Nearly a month into the closure, Trump revived an earlier call to the Senate to abolish the filibuster using the so-called “nuclear option.” The Senate could amend its rules again to abolish the filibuster as the chamber’s “nuclear option” provides a parliamentary mechanism for modifying a rule by a simple majority vote. Trump also called for the scrapping of the filibuster during his first term as president, during which his party controlled the Senate. The Republican leader in the chamber at that time, Mitch McConnell, concerned that eliminating the filibuster would haunt Republicans when they were again in the minority, ignored the call. McConnell’s successor, Senator John Thune, has said he’d protect the filibuster.