The Parliamentarian Said No. Now Trump Wants to Burn the Rules Down

6/30/2025

It’s a hell of a thing to watch an entire political party decide the rules don’t apply to them - on repeat. The GOP’s authoritarian branding isn’t new, but now they’ve hit a new low: openly plotting to override the Senate parliamentarian just to ram through shady giveaways that should’ve already died in committee.

Let’s rewind.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill barely cleared a procedural vote in the Senate. That vote was supposed to mark the bill’s passage into the final stretch: quick passage and a guaranteed win for Trump’s second-term agenda.

But then the Senate parliamentarian did her job.

Elizabeth MacDonough, the nonpartisan rules referee of the Senate, ruled that several last-minute backroom deals violated the Byrd Rule. For those who don’t speak Congressional-ese, the Byrd Rule exists to keep reconciliation bills focused strictly on federal revenue and spending.

You can’t slip in random political favors. You can’t stuff in deregulation or carve-outs that don’t directly impact the budget.

And that’s exactly what Republicans did. They handed out deals like candy-then acted shocked when someone called it cheating.

Yesterday, I wrote about Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who had her vote bought with a basket of Alaska-specific goodies: increased Medicaid reimbursements, SNAP exemptions, extra funding for rural hospitals, and tax breaks for commercial whalers. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri was also promised relief for Medicaid provider taxes.

There were carve-outs to exempt certain orphan drugs from Medicare price negotiation, attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and attempts to cut off ACA subsidies in states where abortion is legal.

Every single one of those provisions was struck by the parliamentarian rendering them dead on arrival.

Not because she’s biased, but because they violate the rules. Reconciliation isn’t a free-for-all. If you want to pass legislation with just 51 votes, you have to play by the rules.

But Trump doesn’t play by the rules.

Last night, he posted on Truth Social demanding that Senate Republicans override the parliamentarian entirely.

And his allies didn’t stop there. Senator Tommy Tuberville went full authoritarian, declaring that the Senate Parliamentarian “should be fired ASAP” for standing in Trump’s way. Senator Roger Marshall backed him up, citing a 2001 incident where Republicans fired the Senate parliamentarian for blocking parts of their agenda - a move that was widely condemned at the time as a partisan abuse of power and a direct attack on the Senate’s nonpartisan rules process. Now he’s floating doing the same to MacDonough for daring to strike Trump’s backroom bribes.

In the House, Congressman Dan Crenshaw threw a tantrum over her decision to strike a Medicaid ban targeting gender-affirming care, calling the ruling “infuriating” and urging Senate leadership to get rid of her.

Greg Steube called her a “swamp bureaucrat” and insisted she shouldn’t be allowed to derail a bill backed by Trump. Even Senator Rand Paul chimed in, questioning why a non-elected official should have any power over legislation.

This is a coordinated pressure campaign to destroy the rules by taking out the referee. Because that’s the MAGA way: if someone tells you no, eliminate them. Fire them, discredit them, call them part of the deep state - whatever it takes to bulldoze the process and get what you want.

And finally, because I was confused myself until I did a deeper dive, let me make one thing clear:

This bill does not suddenly require 60 votes. That’s a myth.

If Republicans accept the parliamentarian’s decision, then the stripped-down bill moves forward as a reconciliation bill. That means they only need 51 votes to pass it. That’s the process working exactly as designed.

If Republicans override the ruling? Same thing. They still only need 51 votes to uphold the override and pass the version of the bill that includes the junk she tossed out.

Now, overriding the parliamentarian isn’t how this process is supposed to work - but if they do it, they still don’t need 60 votes. That’s the twisted part. They’re not leaving reconciliation behind; they’re just corrupting it from the inside.

Reconciliation rules are supposed to limit what you can include in a bill in exchange for the privilege of passing it with just 51 votes. If Republicans override the parliamentarian’s ruling, they’re just simply not following those rules. They are actively voting to ignore them.

And yes, all the crap that was struck - Murkowski’s carve-outs, Hawley’s Medicaid handout, the abortion subsidy ban - it all goes back in.

They’re not technically breaking the law, but they’re breaking the guardrails. It’s not illegal, but it’s absolutely a betrayal of the process.

The only scenario where they’d need 60 votes is if they tried to sneak those provisions back in without holding an official override vote. But that’s not what’s happening. They’re doing the override in the open - deliberately voting to ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling so they can stuff all the rejected carve-outs back into the bill, keep it under reconciliation, and still pass it with just 51 votes.

So yes, they can still get the bribes back in and pass it with a simple majority.

Many still want to make sure Murkowski and Hawley and everyone else who sold their vote still gets paid. The override is about preserving the corruption they baked into the bill.

It’s hard to overstate how dangerous this is. Overriding the parliamentarian turns the Senate into a lawless chamber where party loyalty trumps institutional integrity. It means reconciliation rules are only rules when they’re convenient. It means the next time, there’s no referee at all.

If Republicans override the parliamentarian to jam it through, they’ll be overriding the last pretense that any of this still functions.

And the worst part? No matter what they choose - bribe-free or bribe-packed - they still only need 51 votes to do it.