Senate Republicans are shrugging off President Donald Trump’s demands to fire the chamber’s parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official refereeing which provisions of the GOP’s $70 billion immigration enforcement bill violate Senate rules.
Trump made his latest case against Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, accusing her of a liberal bias on Wednesday. The criticism comes as MacDonough has determined that security funding for the White House complex, including the under-construction ballroom, failed to comply with reconciliation rules and would not be able to skirt a filibuster with the rest of the measure.
“Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats — So why has she not been replaced?” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “The Republicans play a very soft game compared to the Dumocrats.”
Senior Republicans were quick to reject the notion, a move they also shot down last year after provisions of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act were stricken as out of compliance.
“I do not support the firing of the parliamentarian,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME), who is up for reelection, told the Washington Examiner. “She does an excellent job and applies the Senate rules fairly and in a nonpartisan way.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) noted MacDonough, who was appointed to her role in 2012 by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, ruled against major Democratic priorities during reconciliation under former President Joe Biden. Those provisions included immigration reform and raising the minimum wage, among others.
“I think the best answer to that is that the parliamentarian has demonstrated in the Biden administration with their … reconciliations that they didn’t get everything they wanted,” Grassley said.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), an advocate of Republicans nuking the filibuster to pass other legislative priorities, cited the Senate’s 60-vote threshold as the true culprit for Trump’s frustration and hindering parts of his agenda.
“She’s literally not the problem. The problem is we maintain the filibuster,” Johnson said. “I’m always looking for root causes.”
Trump vented privately on Monday in a call with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) about MacDonough’s ruling that could jeopardize $1 billion in White House security funding, including $220 million for his new East Wing ballroom. Republicans are reworking the language but may be forced to strip it over a lack of support from rank-and-file members.
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In his Truth Social post, Trump also took aim at former President Barack Obama, who was in office at the time of MacDonough’s appointment but did not have a say over the matter.
“Shockingly, Republicans have kept the very important position of ‘Parliamentarian’ in the hands of a woman, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed, long ago, by Barack Hussein Obama and a vicious Lunatic known as Senator Harry Reid, who ran the Senate for the Dumocrats with an ‘iron fist,’” Trump said.