Calls for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to invoke the Senate's "nuclear option" for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nomination next Thursday – and future GOP-pushed legislation – are apparently falling on deaf ears.
There are no plans to change the Senate's filibuster rules, regardless of President Trump's urging, Sen. McConnell told The Hill on Friday.
"Senate rules are a matter for the Senate, and a lot of other people have opinions," McConnell said, per The Hill. "We've already adopted the rules for this Congress at the beginning of the year.
"Basically we didn't adopt any, because in the Senate, rules are permanent. Unlike the House, which every two year adopts a new set of rules, we don't."
President Trump wanted the Senate Republicans to work to strip Democrats of the ability to filibuster, including using the "nuclear option" to push his Supreme Court nominee through.
"I would" ask Sen. McConnell to use the nuclear option, President Trump told "Hannity" on Thursday night. "We have obstructionists."
Former Senate Majority Leader, the retired Harry Reid, D-Nev., infamously used the "nuclear option" in 2013 – requiring merely a simple majority vote in the Senate (51-49) vs. two-thirds vote (67-33) – to help push President Barack Obama's appointees at the start of his final term.
"It takes 67 votes to change the rules in the Senate," Sen. McConnell told The Hill. "We saw one rather conspicuous exception to that a few years ago, but no we don't have any current plans on the rules."
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