WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pressed Republican senators on Wednesday to terminate the filibuster rule in a bid to end the longest government shutdown in history, but his call to shatter the longstanding institutional hallmark of the Senate appeared to have little immediate effect.

“We have to get the country open. And the way we’re going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the filibuster,” Trump told the senators, who were gathered at the White House for a breakfast.

“It’s possible you’re not going to do that, and I’m going to go by your wishes. You’re very smart people, you’re good friends, but I think it’s a tremendous mistake,” Trump said. “It would be a tragic mistake. Actually, it’s time.”

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune described jettisoning the filibuster as a  mathematical impossibility, saying there are not enough Republicans to do away with it.

“I know where the math is on this issue in the Senate, and it’s not happening,” Thune told reporters after returning from the White House.  The South Dakota Republican expressed optimism that ongoing bipartisan talks would reach a deal to end the shutdown “in the course of the next few days.”

Trump spoke a day after the Senate failed for the 14th time to pass a bill to fund government operations through November 21, with Democrats demanding that Republicans negotiate an extension of expiring tax credits to help low-income Americans pay for private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Filibuster Requires 60 Senate Members

The filibuster requires 60 of the Senate’s 100 members to agree on most legislation before it can pass. But Republicans hold only 53 Senate seats and one Republican opposes the funding bill, meaning they cannot reopen the government without support from at least eight Democrats. So far, only two Democrats and an independent who caucuses with them have been willing to back the funding measure.

While Trump has called for the filibuster’s elimination before, Republicans have warned that doing away with the rule would undermine the Senate’s traditional role as a place of bipartisan compromise and could enable a future Democratic majority to push through its own partisan agenda.

“He made a really good point on how maybe it takes just Republicans to do it on our own,” Republican Senator Mike Rounds said of Trump’s message.

“But there’s a lot of us that really think the Senate was designed in the first place to find a long-term stable solution to problems. So we’ll listen to what the president has to say. But now it’s time for our Democrat colleagues to come back.”

During the Wednesday gathering, Trump played down concerns that the Democrats could take power. He argued that if the Senate eliminates the filibuster, Republicans will be able to maintain power by jamming through what he sees as popular legislation.

Trump told senators that the ongoing government shutdown was impacting the stock market, as well as airlines and SNAP food benefits for low-income Americans.

He blamed Republican losses in elections around the country on Tuesday in part on the government shutdown, which he said had not hurt Democrats in the way he thought it should.

The shutdown is now in its 36th day, eclipsing the previous record of 35 days, set during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021.

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(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Gram Slattery and David Morgan in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)