Trump spoke to Republican Senators at the White House on Monday morning, urging them to change the Senate rules to end the filibuster and “pass all the things we wanted.” “Last night was, you know, not expected to be a victory,” Trump said about the elections yesterday. “It was very Democrat areas, but I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I don’t think it was good. I’m not sure it was good for anybody. But we had an interesting evening and we learned a lot.” “So, as you know, we are in the midst of a disastrous Democrat-created government shutdown, and it is Democrat-created. But I don’t think they’re getting the blame that they should. That’s now officially the longest shutdown in American history,” Trump said. “The Democrat radicals in the Senate have shown zero interest in reopening the government, and I don’t think they’ll act so soon,” Trump said. “I think these guys are kamikaze. They’ll take down the country if they have to.” “And we can’t be extorted to give $ 1.5 trillion to people that came into the country illegally,” Trump said. “No country can sustain that… We can all have big hearts-I have a bigger heart than anybody-but we can’t let that happen.” “It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster. It’s the only way you can do it. And if you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape. We won’t pass any legislation. There’ll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter-we have three and a quarter years. That’s a long time.” “And we should do our own bills. We should get out. We should do our own bills. We should open up-we should start tonight with the country is open. Congratulations. Then we should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we want to pass-make our elections secure and safe-because California is a disaster. Many of the states are disasters. But can you imagine when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID? All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store-you have to give ID. You go to a gas station-you give ID. But for voting, they want no voter ID. That’s only for one reason-because they cheat. We would pass that in 15 minutes. If you don’t get it, you’ll never pass that. You’ll never talk about mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots make it automatically corrupt. If you have mail-in ballots, automatically it’s corrupt.” “They have legislation in California where it’s illegal to ask somebody for voter ID. If you ask somebody for voter ID-if you’re an official and you say, ‘I’d like to see your voter ID’-they can arrest you, OK? They can arrest you, because they want to cheat and they get away with it. And the Republicans let them get away with it. And we won’t do that if we have the filibuster.” “So, we’re going to talk about that a little bit, and we’re going to see if we can sway-because a lot of, not a lot, I’d say half feel this way, maybe a little bit less than half-and it’s time to have a really good talk. If I thought that they weren’t going to pass the filibuster, I wouldn’t even bring it up. They’re going to pass it within the first hour if they take power. And it’s more likely that they take power if we don’t do-because we’re not going to be passing any legislation. They’re not going to approve anything. We’re going to go three and a quarter years; there won’t be one bill that we’re going to pass because the easiest thing to pass is exactly right now what they won’t pass. And they’ll do that and they’ll wreak havoc.” “Let’s assume they get in. They’re doing it anyway, so it wouldn’t matter. They’re doing it anyway.” “But the biggest thing is the filibuster. We have to get the country going. We will pass legislation at levels you’ve never seen before, and it’ll be impossible to beat us. By the way, if they do, they’re going to do it anyway. And they are going to immediately do the filibuster. And when they do the filibuster, they’re going to pack the Court. They want five-at least five justices. Now I hear it’s up to five. I actually heard up to seven and up to nine, OK? They want new judges. They want to pack the Court. And they will do it on the first day-maybe the week… They’re going to pack the Court. They’re going to make D.C. a state and they’re going to make Puerto Rico a state. So now they pick up two states. They pick up four senators. OK? You think you have problems? They’re going to do all of the things. They’re going to pick up electoral votes. It’s going to be a very, very bad situation. And it’s done. It’s done. As soon as they attain power.” “Now, if we do what I’m saying, they’ll most likely never attain power, because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine that’s good- all good for the country-and there’ll be no reason to. If we don’t do that, people will say, ‘They’re not doing much, and they’re in power.'” “I think it’s very important-we have to get the country open. And the way we’re going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the filibuster. It’s possible you’re not going to do that, and I’m going to go by your wishes. You’re very smart people. We’re good friends. But I think it’s a tremendous mistake-really, it would be a tragic mistake, actually. It’s time. It’s time.” “If I thought they weren’t going to approve, I’d sort of be with you-I’d be fine; I’d be neutral with you. But knowing that they’re going to pass it as soon as they get any semblance of control-they’ll pass it first thing-then it’s like we have to do it first. And we have two years, and we’ll end up with two, three years, and we’ll have this country so perfect. We will have passed more legislation than any Congress and any group of Senators or group of Congressmen, and we will get it through. They’ll send it to us; we’ll send it to them. It’ll be a beautiful machine. Otherwise, we’re just going to sit around and argue with these people all day long-and they’re highly unrealistic. Highly unrealistic. Many of them are radical left subversives, frankly,” the president said. Here’s his full speech to GOP Senators, the video above is only segments where he’s on-subject talking about the filibuster:
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