It's not easy for Donald Trump to learn things, and when he has learned something, he absolutely cannot let it go, no more than he can let go of grudges. So when he learned about a thing called the "filibuster" in the Senate and that it could get in the way of his dictatorial desires, the grudge part kicked in. Granted, his grasp of the concept has been kind of fluid and his math—how to get to 50 votes—an ongoing challenge, he's got his teeth in this one. It's fueling his rage, and his civil war against Mitch McConnell and fellow Republicans, and he's going to vent about to everyone including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
“I thought that when I got to the Oval Office, I would have a bill sitting on my desk, repeal and replace, a beautiful health care bill, and it didn’t happen,” he said in a clip of the interview that was released Friday. The full interview premieres Saturday on Huckabee’s new show for the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
“But remember it didn’t happen because of a lot of Republicans and it happened, that horrible thing happened because of a few people, really a few people,” he said, referencing Republicans like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) who weren’t shy about their opposition to the Senate’s repeal and replace plans this summer and fall.
But look out, here comes that filibuster obsession again! "And the problem we have is we have 52 senators and they have to get rid of the absolutely crazy voting where you need 60, it’s called the filibuster rule it’s a disaster, okay?" he told Huckabee. "It’s a disaster for the Republicans. They have to get rid of it. If they don’t get rid of it, it’s just a death sentence."
And there's the math thing again. The inability of McConnell to get 50 votes on Trumpcare had nothing to do with the filibuster. That's been explained to him, you know, because he can acknowledge that it was Republicans who killed this thing. But he somehow just can't grasp that it's not the filibuster's fault. He’s like a dog with a bone on this one.