President Donald Trump is pressing Senate Republicans to remove Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough after she stripped $1 billion in security-related funding, including money tied to his White House ballroom project, from a budget reconciliation package. The move has exposed a fault line inside the GOP conference, with several Republican senators publicly declining to back the president's demand.
Trump took his case public on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social that MacDonough has treated Republicans unfairly for years. He had already made the same push privately, urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier in the week to oust the parliamentarian, Fox News Digital reported.
Thune isn't biting. The South Dakota Republican told reporters he was not having any discussions about firing MacDonough and downplayed the friction as routine.
Over the weekend, MacDonough removed one of Trump's major funding requests from the reconciliation package. The $1 billion was intended in part to pay for security enhancements connected to the White House ballroom project. Of that sum, roughly $600 million would have gone to the Secret Service. Another $220 million was earmarked to bolster security on the East Wing Modernization project.
The funding sat inside Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley's portion of the broader package. Republicans are using the reconciliation process to advance a $72 billion immigration enforcement funding measure, a path they chose because they could not secure enough Democratic votes to clear the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold without making steep concessions on immigration enforcement.
The parliamentarian holds a nonpartisan role that determines what provisions qualify for inclusion in reconciliation bills, which require only a simple majority. MacDonough's decision to strip the security money effectively sidelined a White House priority without a floor vote.
Republicans are still haggling over whether to include the security funding at all.
Trump did not mince words on Wednesday. In his Truth Social post, he framed the parliamentarian's tenure as a legacy of Democratic power:
"Shockingly, Republicans have kept the very important position of 'Parliamentarian' in the hands of a woman, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed, long ago, by Barack Hussein Obama and a vicious Lunatic known as Senator Harry Reid, who ran the Senate for the Dumocrats with an 'iron fist.'"
He followed up with a pointed question about the imbalance he sees in her rulings:
"Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats, So why has she not been replaced? There are many fair people who would be qualified for that vital job."
The president's frustration is understandable. Republicans control the Senate, yet a single unelected official can reshape the contents of their signature legislative vehicle. When the reconciliation process is the only realistic path to fund border enforcement and homeland security without Democratic buy-in, the parliamentarian's pen carries enormous weight.
What's striking is how few Senate Republicans rallied to Trump's side. Thune treated the dust-up as background noise, noting that tempers flare against the parliamentarian "every time there's a reconciliation."
"There are always people that are unhappy with some decisions that come down, and it's kind of the nature of the beast. So, you know, we will work through the process and do our best to get the things that we want, you know, on the floor, later this week."
Grassley, whose committee authored the section containing the disputed funding, offered a measured defense of MacDonough. He pointed out that Democrats didn't get everything they wanted from the parliamentarian during the Biden administration's reconciliation efforts either.
"I think the best answer to that is that the parliamentarian has demonstrated in the Biden administration with their recommendations, reconciliations that they didn't get everything they wanted."
Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy was blunter. Asked whether MacDonough should go, Kennedy responded: "For what?" He added, with characteristic dry humor: "Does she have a DWI or something?"
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson redirected the conversation entirely. He told Fox News Digital that firing the parliamentarian was about as likely as ending the filibuster, and that Republicans should focus on the real structural problem instead.
"We're as likely to end the filibuster as we are to get rid of the parliamentarian, so you might as well put pressure on Republicans to address the root cause, which is the 60-vote threshold."
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall pointed out that removing a parliamentarian during reconciliation is not without precedent. He told Fox News Digital last year that "In 2001, Majority Leader Trent Lott fired the Senate parliamentarian during reconciliation." That episode remains the most frequently cited example by those who argue the move is within the majority leader's authority.
But citing precedent and building a consensus to act on it are different things. The current Republican conference appears uninterested in picking that fight, at least for now.
This is not the first time MacDonough has drawn Republican ire. Last year, she stripped out provisions that would have produced steep cuts to Medicaid spending, prompting a handful of Republicans to demand her replacement then, too. That push went nowhere.
The real problem isn't one parliamentarian. It's the structural bind Republicans face. They turned to reconciliation because Senate Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security without extracting concessions that would gut immigration enforcement. Reconciliation lets Republicans pass spending measures with a simple majority, but it also subjects every line item to the parliamentarian's judgment about what qualifies under Senate rules.
That means an unelected procedural referee can strip out funding the elected majority wants to include. Whether that's a feature of Senate tradition or a bug depends on who's losing the argument.
For Trump, the answer is clear. He sees MacDonough as an obstacle installed by Democrats and tolerated by Republicans who lack the will to act. For Thune, Grassley, Kennedy, and Johnson, the calculation is different: firing the parliamentarian sets a precedent that could come back to haunt the GOP the next time Democrats hold the majority.
Both sides of that argument have merit. But the practical result is that $1 billion in security funding, including $600 million for the Secret Service, sits in limbo while senators debate process.
Thune said Republicans would try to get what they want on the Senate floor later this week. Whether that means finding a procedural workaround for the stripped funding, repackaging it in a form the parliamentarian will accept, or simply moving forward without it remains unclear.
The broader $72 billion immigration enforcement package is still advancing. But the episode has laid bare a recurring tension in Republican governance: the gap between the president's appetite for aggressive action and the Senate's institutional reluctance to change the rules, even when the rules are working against the party's own stated priorities.
Johnson may have put it most plainly. If Republicans won't address the 60-vote threshold and won't remove the parliamentarian, they're left negotiating within a system designed to limit what a simple majority can accomplish. That's either principled restraint or self-imposed paralysis, and the distinction matters when billions in security funding hang in the balance.
When the rules protect the status quo and the status quo serves the opposition, patience stops being a virtue and starts looking like a choice.
