President Donald Trump threatened to veto every piece of legislation put forward during the second half of his administration if Democrats flip control of the House or Senate during next month’s midterm elections.
“Well, I think the Republicans are going to win. But if there was, you call it gridlock, what happens is I veto everything,” Trump told reporters Friday morning while speaking on the South Lawn. “And then the Democrats come and they want to make a deal. So we’ll work it out.”
Historical precedent and polling data suggest Democrats are on the cusp of flipping at least the House next month and possibly the Senate, due to public frustration over the Iran war and high costs of living.
So, they will override his veto
Assuming no Republicans cross the aisle. That’s a fairly reasonable assumption today because the Republican party has been purged of anyone who would be willing to cross Trump.
But I suspect that assumption might not remain so valid if we were to see the kind of blue tsunami it would take to get anywhere near 2/3 of the Senate. Even if you only had 64 seats instead of 67, that still means almost every state went blue, including most of the deep red ones. Any politician with basic survival instincts is going to recognize that tying themselves to the lame duck president that has practically destroyed their party is not going to be a good long term strategy.
It’s not much more plausible a scenario than one where Dems win a full supermajority, but if it were to happen, I would be shocked if every single Republican chose to go down with the ship.
54 seats is the current upper bound of projections for the Democrats in the Senate, let alone 67. Even the moderately Republican-favoring Senate races of South Carolina, Florida, and Nebraska additionally all going blue—currently unlikely—would only take it to 57.
Perhaps enough to prevent a filibuster on contentious issues with enough bipartisan support, but not enough to overturn a veto in most cases.
you also need the super-majority in the house for veto overrides.
it’s actually ‘easier’ to impeach and convict a president than it is to override one of their vetoes.
Right, I wasn’t saying this was a realistic scenario. Just saying that the minimum number of seats they would have to have is not necessarily the same as the number of votes.
all of the senators are so old that I bet a lot of them don’t give a shit about long term strategy
Being older than dirt doesn’t seem to stop them from trying to get reelected.