October 31, 2025
President Trump is demanding Senate Republicans use the nuclear option to end – this government shutdown right now. But what is the nuclear option?
The nuclear option is all about the filibuster. And it really is the key to all of this. So – let’s start from the beginning. The founding fathers knew there would always be division over policies and ideologies – and they feared if there was unchecked majority rule the rights of the minority parties would always be trampled on and that power of the majority would be abused. So they created the electoral college system when it comes to voting for president, they stablished the checks and balances system between our three branches of government and they made sure the United States senate had two senators from each state making every state equal. As opposed to the house of representatives which has elected lawmakers based on a state’s population so bigger states have a bigger say in what happens. Bottom line – the framers of this country always wanted the minority party to have some say in what happens.
And that leads me to the filibuster. It was not something the framers put in the constitution — but after the country was up and running — in the late 1700s and the early 1800s — this practice of using long speeches to delay legislation started to become popular and bills were getting jammed up. In 1842 the house ended the practice of filibustering – but the Senate did not. And by 1917 the Senate decided that there had to be a way to end the filibuster so they passed a rule – which is called cloture — to break a filibuster. The number of votes needed to break a filibuster has changed over the years but finally in 1975 the cloture threshold was set at 60 votes. That means – to this day – it takes 60 votes to end the filibuster. I promise I’m getting to the nuclear option….but hold on one more second.
About those 60 votes. Why? Well – in the senate – in 1975 it was seen as an effective minimum – 60 votes equals three-fifths of the United States sensate. And in practicality — it’s very unusual for one party to have 60 senators. In fact it’s only happened a total of 13 times in 125 years. So that means – it lives up to the founding fathers’ idea that the minority party gets a say in what happens and there must be a compromise.
And that leads me to what’s happening right now and the nuclear option. The nuclear option is the idea to eliminate the filibuster. So get rid of it – this principle that’s been around since the late 1700s. The nuclear option would make it possible to pass legislation in the Senate with just 51 votes instead of 60. And there are two ways to get rid of it – the more difficult and permanent way is to formally make a rule change – but that would require 67 senators to vote yes….that’s not going to happen. But the other way is the so-called nuclear option – instead of formally changing the filibuster rule – this would just be a precedent change. And after a few senate procedural maneuvers it only takes 51 votes and poof – the filibuster is gone. Not forever – but just for certain things. Now in the past this nuclear option has been used by both the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to certain things like when Democrats used it to confirm judges and Republicans used it to confirm Trump’s cabinet appointees. But now – President Trump wants it done again – this time to end this government shutdown…and allow for a spending bill – the continuing resolution to pass with a simple majority. Which has never happened before. Republicans have 53 Senators so without the filibuster they could easily do what Trump wants with zero compromise and no concessions for democrats.
So is that going to happen? Right now – it does not look like it will. The fact is the current Senate majority leader John Thune and several other Republican Senators are not a fan of ending the filibuster because they’re thinking about the long game – which is also a huge piece of this and I’m going to talk about in a second. But before I do – you need to understand President Trump isn’t the only president to call for the nuclear option because he’s frustrated with the minority party holding up his agenda… most recently President Biden did the same thing – he was frustrated when the Republicans who were the minority at the time – held up his own agenda. He called for the nuclear option too – but at that time two democrats Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema said absolutely not – because they too were thinking about the long game.
So what is the long game? Well – it is the reality and the fact that your party is not going to be in power forever. And when your party is in the minority – you’re going to want to use the filibuster too. For example – say Senators Manchin and Sinema agreed with President Biden back then and got rid of the filibuster. Right now — the Democrats would have zero leverage to fight for health care. And that’s the long game that Senator Thune keeps talking about. He’s been in the Senate long enough to know – what goes around comes around and he’s trying to preserve the Republican’s chances to stop whatever the Democrats want to do when the democrats ultimately resume power.
