White House Deputy Press Secretary Rah Shah on Sunday echoed President Donald Trump's call for ending the Senate filibuster and accused Democrats of filibustering more Trump nominees than "the rest of history and recorded time."
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump suggested that Senate Republicans should end the current government shutdown by deploying the so-called "nuclear option," which would allow Republicans to re-open the government with only 51 senators instead of the 60 that are needed now.
Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018
"When the boss speaks, I certainly don't say anything else," Shah told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Sunday. "It's definitely been our position that the Senate has been dysfunctional. It blocks nominees, it blocks all kinds of meaningful legislation, hundreds of great pieces of legislation that the House has passed."
With a nod to the Senate's 200-year history of preserving rights of the minority party, Shah noted that Republicans have the power to end the filibuster immediately.
"We have a lot of things we want to get done and we're frustrated Democrats don't want to work across the aisle," Shah explained. "If you look at just nominations, we have had more nominees for Senate confirmation filibustered in this administration in one year alone than the rest of history and recorded time."
"The level of obstruction is unprecedented," he added. "And I think the response is to be unprecedented with dealing with the filibuster."
And like everything else the White House says, it's a total and complete fabrication.
In fact, it was Democrats that banned the use of the filibuster for nominations, enabling Trump to be the first president to need only 51 votes to confirm all of his nominations. According to The Washington Post, it's the Trump administration which has set a record for the time it takes to name nominees.
Overall, the use of the filibuster has dropped during Trump's administration. Cloture was only invoked 77 times during Trump's first year in office, down from a high of 187 during President Barack Obama's 7th year in office.
