Should Republicans Kill the Senate Filibuster?
WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch
The Wall Street Journal
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
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| 0:32.7 | From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. |
| 0:39.1 | Should Republicans beat Democrats to it and break the Senate filibuster rule to pass legislation |
| 0:46.6 | while they control the entire government this year? Plus, how serious for President Trump |
| 0:52.6 | are the differences that are emerging on the political right over the war in Iran? |
| 0:59.2 | And could it jeopardize control of the Senate? |
| 1:02.6 | Those are our subject today on Potomac, watch a daily podcast of Wall Street Journal opinion. |
| 1:07.3 | I'm Paul As You Go, and I'm here with my colleague under new columnist Barton Swain, |
| 1:14.6 | who happens to be in New York for a couple of days. Great to see you in person, Barton. |
| 1:20.6 | So you wrote a column this week on the debate over the filibuster. This is the procedural rule that requires 60 votes in the Senate to pass legislation. I know procedure tends to be boring, |
| 1:26.0 | but this is really a hot political debate on the right these days. |
| 1:30.1 | I mean, it's been a hot debate for a while for those of us who follow politics, but it's especially emerged on the right this year, with President Trump calling for the Republicans to ex out the filibuster when they have control of the Senate, the House, and the White House. |
| 1:45.6 | And the only real break on legislation the Republicans want, apart from some whatever internal disputes might, and the party might break out, are for Democrats anyway, is the filibuster. |
| 1:55.7 | And this is especially hot this week because the Republicans are trying to pass the Save America Act, which would impose new nationwide voting rules on all 50 states. But Republicans can't get it through. They don't have the votes. They had enough votes to go to the floor and have a debate on it, but they will not have enough votes to pass it because they need 60. They only have 53 Republicans, |
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