'Kamikaze pilots': Trump says Democrats will 'take down the country' after big wins

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a breakfast with Republican Senators at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Appearing unmoved by voters’ message and showing no sign of changing course, President Donald Trump brushed off Democrats’ sweeping wins in Tuesday’s elections during a Wednesday White House breakfast for Republican senators, where he compared Democrats to World War II Japanese suicide bombers.

“I heard it after ‘Kings,’ you know, they said I was a king, and I heard it after ‘Kings,'” he said, referring to last month’s highly attended nationwide “No Kings” rallies and protests. “I heard it after a couple of other moments in time. And I said, ‘No, I don’t believe so.’ And now I heard it after the election. Don’t believe so.”

“I think they will, I think they’re kamikaze pilots,” Trump continued. “I just got back from Japan. I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikazes. They’ll take down the country if they have to.”

The President, his tone weary, repeated his pre-election call to end the Senate filibuster.

“It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster,” Trump told the Republican senators, who did not appear to react. “The only way you can do it.”

“And if you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape,” he warned, appearing concerned about the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election.

“We won’t pass any legislation. There’ll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter — we have three and a quarter years, so that’s a long time.”

The President urged Republicans, who hold majorities in both the House and the Senate to “do our own bills. We should get out, we should do our own bills.”

“Should open up” the country, he said, of ending the shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history. “We should start tonight with ‘the country’s open. Congratulations.’ Then we should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we wanted to pass, make our elections secure and safe, because California is a disaster. Many of the states are disasters.”

“But can you imagine,” he asked, “when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID?” he said of the Democrats.

“All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID,” he said, incorrectly.

“But for voting, they want no voter IDs. So, for one reason, because they cheat. We would pass that in 15 minutes. If you don’t get it, you’ll never pass that. You’ll never talk about mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots make it automatically corrupt,” he alleged, a statement contradicted by numerous studies showing minimal fraud.

Trump again stressed the importance of killing the filibuster, telling Republicans that Democrats are going to “pack” the Supreme Court, “they’re going to make D.C. a state and they’re gonna make Puerto Rico a state. So now they pick up two states, they pick up four senators.”

“They’re gonna pick up electoral votes. It’s gonna be a very, very bad situation.”

But, he said, “if we do what I’m saying,” Democrats will “most likely never obtain power.”

Trump did acknowledge that the federal government shutdown was a factor in Tuesday’s elections — while claiming because he wasn’t on the ballot, Republicans lost.

“I thought we’d have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented,” he said. “And what we should do about it, and also about the shutdown, how that relates to last night. I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. And that was a big factor, and they say that I wasn’t on the ballot, was the biggest factor. But I don’t know about that, but I was honored that they said that.”

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