President Donald Trump has had enough. In a blistering Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump demanded that Senate Majority Leader John Thune immediately fire Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough — an unelected bureaucrat appointed during the Harry Reid and Barack Obama era who has repeatedly used her procedural authority to block or gut key elements of the Republican legislative agenda. And honestly? He’s right. The American people didn’t vote for a Senate Parliamentarian. They voted for Donald Trump and a Republican majority. It’s time the Senate started acting like it.
Who Is the Senate Parliamentarian — And Why Does She Have So Much Power?
Most Americans have never heard of the Senate Parliamentarian, and that’s exactly the problem. Elizabeth MacDonough is an unelected staffer who serves as the Senate’s official interpreter of its rules and procedures. Her rulings — particularly under the budget reconciliation process — have enormous power to determine what legislation can and cannot pass with a simple majority vote.
That matters enormously right now, because Republicans are using the reconciliation process to advance President Trump’s legislative priorities, including tax cuts, border security funding, and spending reforms. Under reconciliation rules, provisions that the Parliamentarian deems to have only an “incidental” budgetary impact can be stripped from a bill — a process known as the “Byrd Bath.” MacDonough has wielded this authority aggressively, and critics argue she has done so in ways that consistently disadvantage Republican priorities.
As Trump pointed out in his post, MacDonough was elevated to her current role during the tenure of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — a radical left Democrat from Nevada who spent decades weaponizing Senate procedure against conservatives. The idea that Republicans are still allowing a Reid-era appointee to act as gatekeeper over their own legislative agenda is, to put it plainly, absurd.
The Parliamentarian Is Not Untouchable — Thune Has the Power to Act
Here’s what the legacy media won’t tell you: the Senate Parliamentarian serves at the pleasure of the Majority Leader. She is not a constitutional officer. She is not confirmed by the Senate. She can be removed. Full stop.
This is not a radical idea. In 2001, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott fired Parliamentarian Robert Dove — and the Senate didn’t collapse. The institution survived. Democrats have certainly never been shy about bending or breaking procedural norms when it served their agenda. They invoked the so-called “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for executive and judicial nominations under Harry Reid in 2013. They did it again for Supreme Court nominees under pressure in 2017. Yet somehow, Republicans are expected to play by rules that Democrats wrote, enforced by a staffer Democrats appointed.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has the authority to act — today, right now, without asking anyone’s permission. The question is whether he has the will to do it. So far, the answer has been a disappointing silence from Republican leadership, the kind of go-along-to-get-along institutionalism that has frustrated conservative voters for decades.
- The Parliamentarian is not elected. She answers to the Majority Leader.
- Her rulings have repeatedly hampered Republican legislative goals.
- She was elevated under Harry Reid and the Obama administration.
- Majority Leader Thune has the unilateral authority to replace her.
- Republicans have a mandate from the American people to deliver results.
The Establishment’s Comfort With Failure Is No Longer Acceptable
There is a familiar, frustrating pattern that conservatives have watched play out for years in Washington. Republicans win elections, secure majorities, make big promises — and then, when it’s time to deliver, they throw up their hands and point to process. “The Parliamentarian ruled against us.” “We don’t have 60 votes.” “The rules won’t allow it.” Meanwhile, the swamp keeps swamping, the bureaucracy keeps bureaucrating, and the American people keep getting lied to.
President Trump has zero patience for this kind of institutional cowardice, and neither should Republican voters. The 2024 election was a historic mandate — a clear, unmistakable signal from the American people that they want their government back. They want the border secured. They want taxes cut. They want Washington to stop working for the donor class and the deep state and start working for them. Allowing an unelected Obama-era holdover to torpedo that agenda from within the halls of the Senate is a betrayal of that mandate.
It is worth asking: if Senate Republicans won’t make this move — a move that requires no vote, no negotiation, no compromise, just a simple personnel decision by the Majority Leader — what exactly will they fight for? At some point, the inability to use the levers of power you actually possess stops being caution and starts being complicity.
Democrats never had this problem. When they had power, they used it. When the rules got in the way, they changed the rules. Republicans need to learn that lesson, and they need to learn it fast. The window to deliver on the Trump agenda is not infinite.
Bottom Line
President Trump is absolutely right. The Senate Parliamentarian is an unelected, Democrat-appointed bureaucrat with an outsized ability to obstruct the America First agenda — and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has the power to remove her today. There is no procedural excuse, no institutional norm, no good-faith reason for Republican leadership to keep her in place. The American people gave Republicans the Senate, the House, and the White House. It is long past time to act like it. Fire the Parliamentarian. Deliver for America. Do the job you were sent to Washington to do.
Follow all the latest on the fight to advance the Trump agenda at USPatriotNews.com/Politics.
