He told George Stephanopoulos he wanted to return to the ‘talking filibuster’.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he supports changing the Senate filibuster rule to require senators to speak on the floor to stop a bill. This is the first time he has endorsed the reform of the procedure, which the White House has been demanding for weeks that the president is opposed to.
The comments, which appear in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, could help stimulate reform advocates who claim that the legislative philosophy stimulates Biden’s agenda in the narrowly divided Senate.
“Shouldn’t you choose between preserving the filibuster and advancing your agenda?” Stephanopoulos asked Biden in their interview outside Philadelphia.
“Yes, but here’s the choice: I do not think you need to eliminate the filibuster, you should do it as it was when I first came to the Senate in the old days,” Biden said. “You had to get up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
‘So you’re in favor of reform? Do you want to bring back the filibuster? ‘ Ask Stephanopulos.
“I am. That’s what it’s supposed to be,” Biden said.
“It comes at a point where democracy can hardly function,” Biden told Stephanopoulos.
Already on Tuesday, Jan Psaki, press secretary of the White House, insisted that Biden ‘prefers not to’ make changes to the filibuster, but that he ‘wants to’ hear ideas on the subject ‘.
Currently, 60 votes in the Senate are needed to end the debate and pass legislation, a threshold that requires Democrats to have the support of at least ten Republicans to advance bills through the 50-50 Senate.
Many Democrats, worried that the filibuster could hold important agenda items such as suffrage and immigration reform, put the Democrats under pressure to use their majority to eliminate the filibuster or change the rules. One proposal Biden referred to Tuesday would return to the ‘talking filibuster’ used decades ago, which requires senators to speak on the Senate floor in order to maintain a challenge to the law.
While moderate Democrat Joe Manchin, DW.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Objected to changing the filibuster, Manchin recently raised the possibility of making the tactic “more painful” for Republicans – a remark adopted in favor of the reform.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Warned Democrats Tuesday against changing the legislative filibuster.
“This chaos would not open an explicit lane for liberal change. It would not open an explicit lane for the Biden presidency to accelerate the history books,” he said. “The Senate would accumulate more like a hundred-car. Nothing moves. ‘
McConnell said Republicans will benefit from any rule changes the next time they retain the Senate majority.
“This pendulum will swing both ways – hard,” he said.
Watch more of the interview with President Joe Biden on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, March 17, at 7:00 AM EDT.