Overview
- On Monday President Trump urged Majority Leader John Thune to remove Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, calling her a partisan holdover and blaming her rulings for blocking GOP priorities.
- MacDonough has used the Byrd Rule to strip non‑budget items from Republican reconciliation plans, most recently ruling the SAVE America Act ineligible and removing roughly $1 billion in Secret Service funding tied to White House projects.
- Thune publicly defended the parliamentarian as a neutral referee and said that parliamentarian rulings “break both ways,” signaling he will not immediately move to fire her.
- Republican leaders plan to revise or drop struck provisions to preserve reconciliation use, but some priorities may now need 60 votes to pass the Senate under the filibuster rule.
- The dispute is intensifying intra‑GOP tensions and raises broader questions about presidential pressure on Senate norms and the limits of fast‑track, simple‑majority lawmaking.