WASHINGTON—House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have defended the value of the filibuster after President Donald Trump urged Senate Republicans to eliminate it in order to fund the government.

“The filibuster has traditionally been viewed as a very important safeguard. If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it,” Johnson told reporters at a press conference with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Oct. 31, the 31st day of the government shutdown.

When asked whether Thune might seek to change the filibuster, a spokesperson for the leader told The Epoch Times via email that his “position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged.”

Thune has consistently defended the filibuster amid recent chatter about challenging it.

Trump encouraged GOP lawmakers to invoke the option and “get rid of the filibuster” on Truth Social on Oct. 30.

The proposal came almost a month into the lapse in funding driven by a partisan standoff over health care spending.

Republicans have been able to secure a majority of votes for their continuing resolution to fund the government, including from three senators who caucus with the Democrats. Yet, support has so far fallen short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a possible filibuster.

In his post, the president suggested that Democrats would have eliminated the institution under President Joe Biden were it not for resistance from then-Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—who later became independents. Both are no longer in the Senate.

“If the Democrats ever came back into power, which would be made easier for them if the Republicans are not using the great strength and policies made available to us by ending the filibuster, the Democrats will exercise their rights, and it will be done in the first day they take office, regardless of whether or not we do it,” the president wrote.

Johnson told reporters that the president’s filibuster talk is “an expression of the president’s anger at the situation.”

“He just desperately wants the government to be reopened,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins speak at a press conference during the 31st day of the government shutdown in Washington on Oct. 31, 2025. (Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times)

Johnson said that a change to the filibuster is “not my call.”

“It’s a Senate chamber issue,” he added.

Over the last week, Republican senators who spoke with The Epoch Times generally sounded skeptical that a push to alter the institution could gain traction.

So did Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

“I’ve heard from my Republican colleagues that they don’t want to move in that direction,” he told The Epoch Times on Oct. 27.

Trump also pushed to end the filibuster during his first term.

Earlier this year, Senate Republicans relied on eliminating the filibuster to expedite the consideration of Trump’s nominees for various executive-branch posts. Senate Democrats had been using procedural maneuvers to delay those nominations.

Trump’s call has also met with resistance from Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah).

“The filibuster forces us to find common ground in the Senate,” he wrote on X. “I’m a firm no on eliminating it.”

Other Senate Republican leaders have stood behind Thune in comments to The Epoch Times.

A spokesperson for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the Senate Majority Whip, told The Epoch Times via email that he, too, continues to support the filibuster.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who chairs the Republican Senatorial Committee, also defended the filibuster in an emailed comment from his spokesperson to The Epoch Times.

“Without it, we could see efforts to add Puerto Rico and D.C. as states to gain more Democrat seats and potentially pack the Supreme Court to secure a permanent liberal majority,” he wrote. “Ending the filibuster would threaten the America we know today.”

A spokesperson for Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), vice chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, directed The Epoch Times via email to a recent C-SPAN interview of the senator.

He described himself as “adamant to be able to protect the filibuster and cloture rules.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who was being interviewed alongside him, concurred with Lankford.

“The thing that distinguishes the Senate is that we are still forced to negotiate and to work together,” he said.

In January 2022, Coons favored a change to the filibuster to advance Democrat-led legislation on voting.

Lankford, for his part, backed the Republican rule change effort in September.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—like Johnson, a member of the House rather than the Senate—endorsed the idea of getting rid of the filibuster.

“Stop forcing people to suffer and lead the country!!” she wrote on X.