Politics

Trump Predicted Killing The Filibuster Would Come Back To Bite Democrats

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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A series of tweets fired off by then-citizen Donald Trump have once again proven to be prophetic.

Trump predicted, in 2013, that Nevada Senator Harry Reid’s filibuster reform would come back to bite Democrats when they no longer had the majority in the Senate.

Trump suggested that Republicans should make use of the fact that the Democrats had used their power to enact a rule that could certainly backfire under the right circumstances.

He even took a swing at former President Obama, pointing out the fact that, Obama had opposed filibuster reform as a junior senator from Illinois.

All that changed by the time Obama took office and his party held the majority in the Senate, but the former president tweeted his approval of the change in 2013.

Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid underwent a similar change of heart. In 2005, he was adamantly opposed to filibuster reform — even going so far as to call it “un-American.”

Just eight years later, he led his Senate down that very path himself.

He appeared unconcerned about the possibility that Republicans could eventually use the rule to their own advantage.

And President Trump wasn’t the only one to predict that Democrats might regret the move. Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issued his warning from the Senate floor in 2013.

The filibuster reform that Democrats championed in 2013 may be what allows President Donald Trump to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy with a more conservative justice — and Democrats would be powerless to stop him if he gets the full support of Senate Republicans.