Tag Archive for: senate republicans

Senate To Confirm 97 More Trump Nominees After Democrat Blockade Fails

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Republicans will confirm a bloc of eight dozen Trump nominees as soon as next week following an attempted blockade by Senate Democrats.

Republican leadership planned Thursday to kick-off the procedural process to confirm 88 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in a bloc vote, but were initially thwarted by Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who challenged the package for violating Senate rules. When Republicans refiled the package later on Thursday, the conference included an additional nine nominees, bringing the total to nearly 100.

Democrats blocked the group package because Sara Bailey — one of President Donald Trump’s nominees included in the package — was not eligible to be included.

When Republicans went nuclear in September to streamline the confirmation process over Democrats’ fierce objections, the conference did not allow cabinet-level positions or judicial appointments to be confirmed in a group package.

Bailey, a former Fox News contributor, has been tapped to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is a senior-level position on par with a cabinet secretary.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune argued that Democrats’ delay tactics amounted to “Trump Derangement Syndrome” during remarks on the Senate floor Thursday.

“Democrats – and their base – still can’t deal with the fact that President Trump won last November,” Thune said on the Senate floor. “And so they have held up every single one – every single one – of his nominations in revenge.”

The new package includes former Republican New York Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, who has been appointed to serve as inspector general of the Department of Labor. Thirteen U.S. attorney nominees and dozens of lower-level executive branch nominees are also teed up for confirmation.

The Senate has confirmed 314 civilian nominees as of Thursday evening, according to a tally by the Senate Republican Communications Center.

The 97-member bloc would bring the Senate to more than 410 civilian confirmations in the first year of Trump’s second term.

“That far outstrips total confirmations by this point in President Biden’s term, and in President Trump’s first term as well,” Thune said Thursday.

Thune also said that Senate Republicans have virtually cleared the nominations backlog. Before Republicans changed Senate precedent to allow for certain nominees to be confirmed in groups, more than 150 of the president’s picks were awaiting floor consideration.

The Senate approved a 48-member nominations package in September and an additional 108 of the president’s picks in a single group vote in October.

Bennet celebrated his short-lived blockade of Trump’s nominees Thursday before Republicans added more individuals to the resolution.

“I will not allow unqualified nominees, this White House, or the President to undermine the rule of law and our national security,” the Colorado Democrat wrote in a statement posted to social media.

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Democrats Defy Call From Allied Federal Workers Union To End Government Shutdown

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Senate Democrats largely brushed off the pleas of a longtime party ally to end the 28-day government shutdown on Tuesday, rejecting a clean funding measure to reopen the government for the 13th time.

Senators voted 54 to 45 to advance legislation temporarily funding the government through Nov. 21, falling short of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. The vote tally has remained unchanged since the opening days of the shutdown with the same three Democratic caucus members — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine — crossing party lines to reopen the government.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to prolong the shutdown comes after the country’s largest federal workers union called on Democrats to vote for the House-passed spending bill to reopen the government without mentioning either party by name.

“Federal workers – your constituents, who serve your constituents – are hurting,” American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) national president Everett Kelley wrote in an open letter on Monday. “As president of the largest federal employee union, I cannot countenance the sight of workers I represent standing in food lines. It should trouble the conscience of every member of Congress and indeed every American.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, told reporters that his caucus were taking federal workers’ concerns “seriously.” Hundreds of thousands of federal workers missed their first full paycheck of the shutdown on Friday and more federal employees, including air traffic controllers, did not receive their government salary on Tuesday.

“It has a lot of impact,” Durbin said of AFGE’s call for an end to the shutdown. “They’ve been our friends.”

However, Durbin signaled on Tuesday that Democrats would keep the government shuttered until their various partisan demands are met.

“The increase in health insurance [premiums], I think is going to be devastating for American families,” Durbin told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Senate Republicans have excoriated Democrats for choosing to continue the shutdown despite a bevy of federal food aid and early childhood support programs slated to run out of funding on or before Nov. 1.

“The pain is becoming intolerable for the American people,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told the DCNF on Tuesday. “I see it at the grocery store, and if that [Women, Infants and Children program] goes away this Saturday, I expect I’m going to hear a lot about it at the grocery store.”

“I don’t know if the Democrats go out into public and talk to people, but the pain is significant already, and the Democrats view that as leverage,” Barrasso continued.

Fetterman, who has emerged as a vocal critic of Schumer’s shutdown strategy, argued that Democrats should listen to the federal workers union’s plea to vote for the bipartisan spending bill and end the shutdown.

“Our servicemembers, federal workers, and Capitol Police are hurting. It’s one of many reasons why I’ve continuously voted to open our government,” Fetterman wrote on X on Monday. “We need to end this chaos.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has continued to hold out hope that a handful of rank-and-file Democrats will buck Schumer to end the shutdown.

“I’m hoping enough [Democrats] come to their senses to give us the five votes that we need to actually get the government reopened again,” Thune told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday evening. “But they are playing a game, and these demands that they have … [are] not serious. It’s not realistic, and they know it.

“And all we’re simply trying to do is fund the government at last year’s levels and keep it open until we can get the appropriations process going,” Thune continued.

Andi Shae Napier contributed to this report. 

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

ROOKE: Democrats’ Grip On Bargaining Power Dramatically Loosens As End Of Schumer Shutdown Looms

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Outwardly, Democrats claim their resolve to keep the government shutdown has never been stronger. However, cracks are beginning to form within the party, signaling that the shutdown might end soon.

When Democrats initially voted against the Republican House-passed clean continuing resolution (CR), voters in large margins blamed Republicans. This is likely due to a lack of knowledge about how many votes it takes to pass a CR after the Democrats invoked a filibuster on the bill. Without a filibuster motion, Senate Republicans needed a simple majority to pass the CR with 100 senators, so 51 votes. However, now that Democrats have invoked the filibuster, Senate Republicans need 60 votes (three-fifths of the 100 senators) to invoke cloture and end debate, after which a simple majority is still required for final passage.

Republicans hold a slim 53-seat majority in the Senate, enough to pass the CR without a filibuster, but not enough to pass the motion. As it stands, Republicans need seven Democrats to cross the aisle to invoke cloture and end the debate.

Democrats used this sneaky trick, with help from the media running cover, to push the blame onto Republicans and President Donald Trump. Their argument was simple: Republicans control both chambers of Congress plus the White House; therefore, the shutdown rests solely on their shoulders. For a while, their strategy has worked. Polling in early October showed a majority of Americans blamed Republicans for the shutdown. However, the longer the shutdown lasts, the worse it’s getting for Democrats.

While polling shows the Congressional Republicans are still shouldering the majority of the blame, approval ratings for Trump and both parties highlight the need for Democrats to quit stalling and pass the CR.

The most recent Quinnipiac University poll, conducted October 16-20, showed 40 percent of registered voters approved of Trump’s job as president, slightly up from Quinnipiac’s September polling, when 38 percent said the same.

When asked about Republicans, 35 percent gave them positive marks for their job performance, while 59 percent disapproved of Congressional Republicans. Compared to that, just 26 percent of registered voters approved of Congressional Democrats, while 67 percent told the survey they disapproved. Both Democrats and Republicans are up from Quinnipiac’s July 16 poll, where voters gave Democrats a 19 percent approval rating and Republicans a 33 percent approval rating.

Democrats are reportedly talking among themselves about the need to end the stalemate. Former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine claimed Tuesday that Capitol Hill Democrats have texted him that the shutdown will end soon.

“Even texting with people on Capitol Hill here on the Democratic side, they know that this cannot go on too much longer,” Turrentine said on “The Morning Meeting” show. “There’s no talk of, ‘Yeah, we’ll do this through Thanksgiving.’”

“They’re like, ‘Yeah, we know this is going to have to end pretty soon.’ Again, the question is: who blinks?” he added. “And I do continue to think that by the end of next week, that middle part of the Democratic Party is going to start talking about, ‘How do we get out of this?’”

And while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries insist that their members will not be voting to pass the CR until Republicans fill the clean CR with their demands, the list of Democrats crossing the aisle to join Republicans ticked up Thursday.

Initially, just two Democratic senators, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, had joined Republicans to pass the CR. On Thursday, two more Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both from Georgia, voted with Republicans to end the government shutdown. However, Republicans lost Cortez Masto on the last vote, with her rejoining the Democratic side to keep the government shutdown.

Republicans have 55 votes (53 Republican senators and 3 Democratic senators) in favor of opening the federal government. The party needs just five more votes to invoke cloture and end the debate, thus allowing a simple majority vote to end the shutdown.

And while Democrats continue to keep the government closed, regular Americans and essential federal workers are going without the assistance or pay they need. It seems for the time being, Democrats are fine using their pain as leverage in order to score political points.

AUTHOR

Mary Rooke

Commentary and Analysis Writer. Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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‘Everything Is Under Consideration’: Senate GOP Vows Action To Steamroll Dems’ Obstruction

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Senate Republicans are mulling various strategies to circumvent Democrats’ unprecedented roadblocks slowing the confirmation process of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Trump has urged Senate GOP leadership to make significant progress clearing the backlog of roughly 150 nominees awaiting floor consideration or forgo the traditional August recess to continue plowing through confirmation votes. Many Senate Republicans suggested Tuesday that the conference may pursue changes to Senate rules to allow the upper chamber to quickly confirm Trump’s picks rather than let Democrats’ roadblocks continue to delay the confirmation process.

“Everything is under consideration,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This has been an unprecedented, historic blockade by the Democrats. Presidents deserve to get their team in place as does President Trump.”

“If the Democrats don’t change their behavior, we’re going to need to change the way things are done,” Barrasso added.

His vow for action comes as many Republicans have said they are done putting up with Democrats’ delay tactics. The Democratic caucus has thus far refused to confirm any of Trump’s picks by unanimous consent or voice vote despite Republicans allowing hundreds of Biden nominees to have expedited confirmations.

Former President Joe Biden had 44 nominees confirmed via voice vote by July 29 of his presidency. Senate Republicans ultimately signed off on allowing 57% of his nominees to be confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent during his presidency, according to the Senate GOP-aligned Senate Republican Communications Center (SRCC).

Additionally, Democrats have agreed to allow just one of the president’s nominees, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to skip a procedural vote. The caucus, however, still forced Rubio to be subject to a final confirmation vote despite no senators voting against his nomination.

The other 109 nominees that have been confirmed thus far were subject to multiple roll call votes, requiring Senate Majority Leader John Thune to burn through hours of floor time. Democrats’ stalling tactics have created considerable delays with some nominees that were appointed in January still waiting for floor consideration to be approved for their role.

“What we’re seeing is so much obstruction, historic obstruction, that I think we’ve got to find a better way to get these [nominees] done,” Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a member of Republican leadership, told the DCNF. “We can’t keep going on like this. It’s not fair to the president.”

The conference is considering various methods to expedite the confirmation process for some Senate-confirmed positions. Some of the rules changes could be approved by a simple majority vote.

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said that he would be on board with revising the Senate’s rules to dramatically expedite the confirmation process.

“One change would be to eliminate cloture motion on nominees and eliminate a motion to proceed and just have one vote and leave committee and have one vote,” Paul told the DCNF.

“And I think, really, the caucus is inclined to do something like that,” Paul continued. “The push is going to come to shove if there is no negotiation and no settlement before that — I believe that the rules will change.”

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told the DCNF that he would like to change the number of positions in the executive branch that require Senate confirmations, proposing to slash the thousands of Senate-confirmed positions by at least a few 100 people.

Senate Republicans have also discussed altering the upper chamber’s debate rules to quicken the process for each nominee under consideration on the floor.

“We need to find ways like we’ve reformed in the past to get to simple 51 votes for the Supreme Court, to get to 51 votes for two hour cloture [votes] for some lesser important positions,” Daines told the DCNF. “But I think for some of the other nominations we should continue to reform the rules of the Senate that allows the Senate to move faster.”

Senate Republicans’ enthusiasm for revising the upper chamber’s rules comes as many members of the conference have also said they are willing to stay in session during the planned August break to continue plowing through confirmation votes.

“[I] hope that my Democratic friends come to their senses and cooperate, which is unlikely,” Kennedy told the DCNF, stating that he’s prepared to stay in session during August if necessary.

As Senate Republicans debated the best path forward to circumvent Democrats’ stalling tactics, the upper chamber continued to confirm multiple nominees Tuesday.

“We’ve had to kind of grind through, and that’s what we’re going to keep doing,” Thune said at the Senate GOP leadership press conference Thursday. “It is the far left of their caucus that is preventing even good government people, people who are bipartisan, from getting confirmed. So that’s got to change, and if it doesn’t, we’re going to be here a while.”

Andi Shae Napier and Caden Olson contributed to this report. 

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserve.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

ROOKE: Democrats Seem To Be Setting Themselves Up For More Chaos And Division

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President Donald Trump and Republicans could have a short-lived victory in passing their One Big Beautiful Bill. In just ten weeks, Republicans will face another funding battle to avoid a government shutdown. But, fortunately for them, Democrats are still undecided on how to respond.

There are open discussions about Democrats’ limited options when fighting against Republicans, Politico reported Monday. Rather than come up with a plan to find leverage to get what they want, Democrats, such as Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, blame Republicans for following Trump’s lead and complain that Republicans are unwilling to include Democrats in the budget decision-making process.

“They’re just throwing stuff against the wall because they’re losing this fight,” Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy told Politico.

Democrats don’t seem to understand why they were defeated in November or how to gain back voter confidence in the new Trump era. While Democrats are “furious with the Trump administration and their Republican counterparts for undercutting government funding negotiations,” there is no “unified strategy” in place for the next major funding bill, set to be voted on before the government shutdown Oct. 1, according to Politico.

“To be blunt, I don’t think there’s one tactic or approach that is going to solve this from any individual Democrat,” Schatz told the outlet. “The Republicans have to decide whether they want to be totally lobotomized or not.”

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to work with Republicans on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, but received significant pushback from his fellow party members.

“‘He’s done a great deal of damage to the party,’ said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, which has scheduled an emergency call with its New York chapter and other local leaders to “seriously consider if the current [Democratic] leadership is equipped to handle the moment we’re in,’” Politico reported.

This puts any Democrat looking to side with Republicans in a terrible position. If they cross the aisle, they risk the Schumer treatment, but if they don’t, they get blamed for shutting down the federal government and all that entails.

Of course, Republicans have a few stragglers who seem to sympathize with the Democratic Party’s position against slashing funding for abortion and DEI hiring practices for the federal government.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were the lone two votes against Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package, which ended funding for some of the establishment’s favorite projects, including foreign aid, PBS, and NPR. As Appropriations Committee chair, Collins told her fellow members that countering Trump and his White House budget chief, Russ Vought, is “to continue to work in a bipartisan way.”

One faction of the Democratic Party aims to persuade more Republicans to join their side during these budget negotiations. The other seems to think the only way to stop the “Trump train” is to derail it using their favorite weapon: lawfare.

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top-ranking Democrat appropriator, appears to strike a balance between both sides. She told reporters that Democrats need “to make sure that there are several others on the other side of the aisle who have the stomach and the strength and the spine to stand up” to Trump and Republicans. Still, she added that her party needs to boost the number of lawsuits against the Trump administration.

Democrats have one major card in their pocket to play before it is all over. With their slim majority in both chambers of Congress, Republicans need Democratic votes to pass their budget bill and avoid a government shutdown. However, despite that obvious strategy, Democrats have been reluctant to use it against Republicans.

I guess they realize that some money is better than no money.

Democrats are increasingly becoming a neutered party with no real message to win, except that “Trump is bad.” But outside of its hardcore base, the rest of American voters are looking for someone who will answer questions on how to fix the issues that directly affect them, like the economy and illegal immigration.

Democrats are so far unable to determine the path to victory in the new Trump era, let alone take any action to help Americans, leaving them in a difficult position as they enter what will be a challenging midterm battle against a more unified Republican opponent.

AUTHOR

Mary Rooke

Commentary and Analysis Writer. Follow Mary Rooke on X: @MaryRooke

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Senate Passes Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ Bill After Holdout Supplies Critical Vote

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The Senate approved President Donald Trump’s landmark bill largely along party lines Tuesday morning after senators took dozens of votes on amendments and procedural motions in a marathon session that lasted more than 24 hours.

Senators voted 51 to 50 with Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine opposing the president’s sweeping domestic policy legislation. The bill’s passage is a massive victory for Senate GOP leadership who were able to keep defections to a minimum and convince one holdout, Republican Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, to supply a critical vote to pass the president’s tax and immigration bill.

Vice President JD Vance, who arrived in the Capitol shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday, cast the tie-breaking vote. The Senate-amended bill now heads to the House for consideration where lawmakers are racing to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline.

Given Senate Republicans’ 53-47 majority, Thune could afford to spare just three votes. Every Senate Democrat, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, voted no on the Senate version of the president’s “big, beautiful” bill.

The “vote-a-rama” that preceded the vote on final passage was one of the longest voting sessions in American history. Senators cast more than 45 votes in a session that started at 9 a.m. Monday as Senate GOP leadership lobbied holdouts to support the bill.

The Senate agreed to pass just a handful of amendments to the bill during the course of voting. Senators overwhelmingly backed a measure offered by Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn to eliminate a provision freezing state and local AI regulation.

The Senate also approved a “wrap-around amendment” immediately preceding to a vote on final passage that incorporated last-minute changes to the bill. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.

Tillis and Collins justified their opposition to the president’s domestic policy bill, citing the proposal’s aggressive reforms to Medicaid.

Paul, a fiscal hawk who almost never supports bills that increase budget deficits, also voted against the president’s budget bill. He said he could not support the legislation given a provision that would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.

The president notably criticized Tillis and Paul for voting against starting debate on Trump’s megabill Saturday.

“Thom Tillis has hurt the great people of North Carolina,” Trump wrote on the social media platform Truth Social Tuesday. “Even on the catastrophic flooding, nothing was done to help until I took office. Then a MIRACLE took place! Tillis is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER! He’s even worse than Rand ‘Fauci’ Paul!”

Congressional Republicans are using the so-called budget reconciliation process to circumvent Democrat’s opposition and pass tax and spending legislation by a simple majority vote.

The upper chamber’s bill combines a staggering number of Trump’s policy priorities into one budget package. It would permanently extend the president’s 2017 tax cuts, temporary eliminate taxation on tipped wages and overtime pay for certain Americans and restore several business tax breaks sought by the private sector

The budget package would also boost immigration enforcement and defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while achieving the largest cut to mandatory spending in American history, including slowing the rate of federal Medicaid spending by roughly $1 trillion over a decade.

The final bill is the product of Republicans’ legislative ambition that was years in the making. The last time Republicans had a trifecta in Washington to pass a budget reconciliation bill was nearly a decade ago during the start of Trump’s first term in office.

“This is Republicans fulfilling our promise of growth and prosperity for the American people,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-ranking Senate Republican, said Monday on Fox News. “It’s more money in people’s pockets for gas, groceries, for rent. All of those things, and as the president said, we need to stop this $4 trillion tax increase, which would be the biggest increase in taxes in the history of our country.”

The combined effects of these tax provisions are projected to result in $7,800 to $13,000 higher take-home pay for the average family with two children, according to a White House report analyzing the initial House-passed bill that was published in May.

The Senate bill now heads to the House where it faces uncertain prospects. A flank of House conservatives have pledged to tank the upper chamber’s proposal for violating a framework in the House to pair tax cuts with dollar-for-dollar spending reduction. A cohort of moderate GOP lawmakers have signaled they will vote “no” on the Senate bill, citing opposition to aggressive reforms to Medicaid.

Any changes the House makes to the Senate’s bill would have to pass the upper chamber for a second time before Trump can sign the measure into law.

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Congressional Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Make The Changes They Want’: Trump Gives Senate Go-Ahead To Take Red Pen To ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

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President Donald Trump gave Senate Republicans permission to make major changes to the House-passed “one big, beautiful bill” Sunday evening, throwing a wrench in Speaker Mike Johnson’s efforts to persuade his upper chamber colleagues to refrain from significantly rewriting the legislation.

Trump’s approval of Senate Republicans making “the changes they want” in the sweeping tax and spending bill comes as some GOP senators are warning that the package is dead-on-arrival without major reforms. Johnson has been urging the Senate to alter the legislation as little as possible given the “delicate” consensus House GOP leadership crafted on the president’s landmark bill, which passed the House by a narrow one-vote margin Thursday.

“I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want,” Trump told reporters Sunday evening. “It will go back to the House and we’ll see if we can get them. In some cases, the changes may be something I’d agree with, to be honest.”

“We’ve had a very good response from the Senate and I don’t know how Democrats can’t vote for it,” Trump continued. “I think they [Senate Republicans] are going to have changes. Some will be minor, some will be fairly significant.”

Congressional Republicans are moving quickly to meet the White House’s July 4 deadline to pass Trump’s domestic policy agenda in the budget reconciliation bill. Assuming the Senate modifies the House-passed legislation, House Republicans will have to vote on the bill for a second time before sending the package to the president’s desk.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Johnson in a May 9 letter that GOP lawmakers have little time to waste to pass the president’s tax and spending bill because Congress must raise the statutory debt limit by mid-July to avert the government defaulting on its $37 trillion debt. House and Senate Republicans are incorporating a debt ceiling hike in the bill, but disagree over the amount Congress should borrow thus far.

Senate Republicans are suggesting they will take a red pen to major portions of the House-drafted bill, including provisions that significantly raise the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, aggressively phase out tax breaks for green energy projects and fail to make certain tax cuts permanent.

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a leading deficit hawk, is also warning that he has the votes to stop the momentum on quickly passing a Senate-amended package if the upper chamber does not consent to steeper spending cuts.

However, Speaker Johnson is warning that significantly changing the legislation’s text could jeopardize the amended-bill’s passage in the House.

“I think we reached a good equilibrium point over more than a year of discussion and negotiation and planning for our big reconciliation bill,” Johnson told Fox News’ Shannon Bream on Sunday morning. “We balanced the interest of a very diverse Republican caucus.”

“We’re one team here — House and Senate Republicans —working together because we must. We have small margins in both chambers,” Johnson added. “I encourage them to modify the package that we’re sending over there as little as possible, because we have to maintain that balance, and it’s a very delicate thing.”

Several groups in the House Republican conference, including the House Freedom Caucus, claimed they only supplied the votes to pass the budget reconciliation bill after House GOP leadership signed off on last-minute changes to the package incorporating key conservative policy wins. The conservative flank is signaling that they “will not look kindly” on the Senate stripping those provisions out of the bill.

Trump has remained publicly upbeat about his landmark bill’s advancement through Congress, even as lawmakers engage in heated debates over the granular details of the legislative package.

“I think it’s going to get there,” Trump told reporters Sunday.” [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune and Mike Johnson have done a fantastic job.”

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Congressional Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Senate GOP Races Ahead With Trump Confirmations Despite Historic Roadblocks From Dems

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Senate Republicans are plowing ahead with confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees, outpacing the confirmation speed of the prior two administrations, including Trump’s first, despite unprecedented obstruction from Senate Democrats.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) general counsel nominee Sean Donahue on Thursday became the 67th civilian nominee of Trump’s second term to be confirmed, more than doubling the number of civilians that were confirmed by May 15, 2017 during the president’s first term. The Senate GOP leadership’s aggressive pace comes as Senate Democrats have sought to place historic roadblocks in the confirmation process by requiring roll call votes for all of the president’s nominees.

Senate Democrats have placed blanket holds on hundreds of the president’s nominees thus far, requiring Senate GOP leadership to use finite floor time to confirm each nominee individually through a series of roll call votes.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday became the latest Democrat to announce holds on the president’s Department of Justice (DOJ) nominees following Trump’s plans to accept a jet from the Qatari royal family.

Senate Republicans, however, pointed out that Democrats have sought to delay the confirmation process since the opening days of Trump’s presidency.

“Democrats can drag out nominations all they want, but we’re going to fill out the president’s administration and ensure that his nominees get into place so that … he can do the job that he was elected to do,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on the Senate floor Monday. “I’d like to do this the easy way, and confirm noncontroversial nominees expeditiously – in batches, for example, and maybe even by unanimous consent.”

“But if we have to do this the hard way, we will,” Thune continued. “We’re going to get the president’s team in place.”

Trump, in his second term, is the first president in roughly a century to not have a single civilian nominee secure confirmation via voice vote or unanimous consent at this point in his presidency, according to the Thune-aligned Senate Republican Communications Center.

The Communications Center looked as far back as former President Herbert Hoover’s administration and found that every president since has had a nominee confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent at this point in their presidency, except for Trump in his second term.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was confirmed just hours after Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20, is the lone Trump nominee that Senate Democrats allowed to bypass a cloture vote. Senate Democrats forced the other 66 civilian nominees confirmed thus far to be subjected to a cloture vote to end debate on their nominations.

Prior administrations, even those with few total civilian nominee confirmations as of May 15, had an easier time moving nominees across the Senate floor than the second Trump administration.

Senate Democrats have sought to stall the confirmation process by requiring a cloture vote for nearly every Trump nominee. (Chart by the Senate Republican Communications Center)

Senate Democrats confirmed 52 of former President Joe Biden’s civilian nominees as of May 15 in the first year of his presidency. However, just 33 of those nominees required a cloture vote to win confirmation.

Similarly, 11 of the 32 Trump nominees confirmed by May 15 in the first year of the president’s first term did not require cloture votes to cut off debate on their nominations.

Though former President Barack Obama secured 107 civilian nominee confirmations by May 15, 2009, the Senate held a cloture vote on just one nominee out of the entire cohort.

The Trump White House attributed the quick confirmation pace of the president’s nominees to their enthusiasm to implement the president’s policies.

“The Senate has confirmed President Trump’s nominees at a record pace because his picks are wildly popular, credible and eager to implement the President’s America First agenda,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement Thursday.

Though Senate Republicans have made substantial progress in getting the president’s appointees into place, much of Trump’s agenda has yet to advance through the Republican-controlled Congress. Senate Democrats have successfully filibustered four GOP-backed bills since January despite every member of the Democratic conference previously voting or campaigning to eliminate the procedural rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation.

Thune indicated he is aiming to send what Trump has called his “one, big beautiful bill,” a vast tax and spending package incorporating much of the president’s legislative agenda, to Trump’s desk by July 4.

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dems Have ‘Chosen Obstruction’, Sen GOP Leader Says, As Schumer Blocks Trump Noms From Swift Confirmation

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Senate GOP Advances Tax Cuts, Border Security Spending After Marathon Session

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The Senate voted largely along party lines early Saturday morning to pass a budget blueprint encompassing many of President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities, including a permanent extension of the president’s 2017 tax cuts and $175 billion in new spending on border security.

Senators voted 51 to 48 to advance the Trump-backed budget resolution to the House for consideration with Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine joining with Senate Democrats to oppose the fiscal framework. The budget blueprint’s passage at roughly 2:30 a.m. came after a marathon series of votes known as a “vote-a-rama” during which Senate Democrats forced their Republican colleagues to take politically contentious votes on amendments related to entitlement program spending, Department of Government Efficiency actions and Trump’s tariffs.

Senate Republicans countered that the forthcoming tax and spending bill that would be unlocked with passage of the budget resolution by both chambers would not cut Americans’ Medicaid or Medicare benefits. Congressional Republicans are seeking to enact Trump’s legislative agenda through a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows Senate Republicans to bypass the filibuster and advance legislation by a simple majority vote.

“The argument is going to be made that we’re going to hurt all kinds of different people tonight in different ways,” Republican Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo said on the Senate floor Friday evening. “But the reality is that’s not going to happen. The President has been very clear any reforms to Medicare or Medicaid must not reduce patient benefits.”

No amendment offered by Senate Democrats was notably related to border security or helping fast-track the president’s deportation agenda.

Paul voted against the budget resolution, citing the blueprint’s inclusion of a $5 trillion increase in the statutory debt limit, which the Kentucky Republican argued would set a record for borrowing more money during one bill at any recent point in American history.

“If we expand the debt at $5 trillion that will be an expansion of the debt equal to or exceeding everything that happened in the Biden years,” Paul said on the Senate floor Friday. “Republicans who vote for this will be on record as being more fiscally liberal than their counterparts. They will vote to borrow more money than the Democrats have ever borrowed.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Budget found that the Senate’s blueprint will add up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit, which the organization argued would be “historically unprecedented in its fiscal irresponsibility.”

Senate GOP leadership has argued that the low spending reduction floors in the bill give the upper chamber maximum flexibility to ensure compliance with the budget reconciliation process.

Some deficit-concerned House GOP lawmakers are not convinced senators are serious about cutting spending, suggesting they will oppose the budget resolution barring changes to the text.

“If the Senate can deliver real deficit reduction in line with or greater than the House goals, I can support the Senate budget resolution,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris said in a statement Saturday. “However, by the Senate setting committee instructions so low at $4 billion compared to the House’s $1.5 to $2 trillion, I am unconvinced that will happen. The Senate is free to put pen to paper to draft its reconciliation bill, but I can’t support House passage of the Senate changes to our budget resolution until I see the actual spending and deficit reduction plans to enact President Trump’s America First agenda.”

“The Senate response was unserious and disappointing, creating $5.8 trillion in new costs and a mere $4 billion in enforceable cuts, less than one day’s worth of borrowing by the federal government,” House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington said in a statement Saturday morning.

The initial House budget resolution did not allow for permanent tax relief, which is a nonstarter for most Senate Republicans and the president.

Senate Republicans included a permanent extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts in the fiscal framework by using a budget scoring approach that assumes a permanent extension has a deficit neutral impact because the forthcoming bill would just be continuing current policies.

“Americans should not have to live in fear of a tax hike every few years,” Thune said in a speech on the floor Thursday.

Arrington appeared to slam the budget resolution’s scoring approach Saturday morning for including the current-policy baseline without commensurate spending reductions.

“It also sets a dangerous precedent by direct scoring tax policy without including enforceable offsets,” Arrington said.

Trump has notably endorsed the Senate budget resolution, adding pressure on House lawmakers to support the blueprint when they return to Washington.

“Every Republican, House and Senate, must UNIFY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday. “We need to pass it IMMEDIATELY!

AUTHOR

Adam Pack

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

America Is Seriously Unimpressed By Congressional Democrats, Poll Finds

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Americans’ approval of Democrats in Congress just plummeted to an all-time low while approval of congressional Republicans soared to an all-time high, according to a new poll.

Only 21% of voters approve of the way that congressional Democrats are handling their job, which is a record low, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published on Wednesday. Of those surveyed, 68% said they disapproved of how Democrats in Congress are handling their positions, and 11% did not offer an opinion.

Meanwhile, the survey found that a record number of Americans approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling their job. Of those surveyed, 40% approved of congressional Republicans’ handling of their jobs, while 52% disapproved and 8% did not give an opinion.

Still, 40% of Democrats said they approve of the way the congressional Democrats are handling their job, while 49% disapprove and 11% did not offer an opinion, according to the survey.

“It’s a sobering slap down of historic proportions for the Democrats in Congress,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy wrote in a Wednesday press release. “Their Republican counterparts take a victory lap as the Democrats try to get their footing.” 

President Donald Trump has recently notched higher approval ratings in the first several weeks of his second term than he did during his first term, with a CBS News poll released on Feb. 9 finding that 53% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing during his current presidency. Notably, a poll published toward the end of January found that overall approval ratings for the Democratic Party neared an all-time low.

The Democratic Party has faced various hurdles since Trump’s resounding victory in the 2024 presidential election, primarily struggling to formulate a plan to combat the new administration’s agenda, while Republicans have continued to expand their base. Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin acknowledged in a Tuesday memo that his party lost a share of working class voters and are now often viewed as the “party of elites.”

Quinnipiac University’s poll was conducted from Feb. 13 to 17 and surveyed 1,039 registered voters. The survey’s margin of error is three percentage points.

AUTHOR

Ireland Owens

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

GOP Senators On The Fence For Trump Nominees Voted To Confirm Worst Of The Worst For Biden

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Several Senate Republicans who previously confirmed President Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees now appear hesitant about some of President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees.

Some Republicans are sidestepping questions surrounding Trump’s more contentious nominees, calling into question which of his picks will survive the confirmation process. The nominees attracting the most pushback from within the GOP’s tent include Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel.

While many of these Republicans supported Biden’s cabinet confirmations, they now seem tentative about Trump’s selections. Senators who previously voted to confirm Biden’s nominees such as Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas are now seemingly noncommittal about Trump’s choices.

Trump’s nominees aim to reverse Biden administration policies and reinstate his “America First” agenda. Members of Biden’s cabinet, meanwhile, have drawn harsh criticism during their tenures — particularly Mayorkas, who Republicans criticized for failing to stem the influx of illegal migrants across the southern border during Biden’s term, and Austin, who was criticized for the disastrous mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, which left 13 Americans dead in 2021. Austin was also grilled in February over what he called a “breakdown in notifications” after he allegedly failed to notify Biden and others that he was in the intensive care unit for surgery related to prostate cancer.

Republicans have also ripped Garland, who they say weaponized the Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to charges against Trump. House Republicans even introduced a resolution that would have fined the attorney general $10,000 per day were he to continue withholding audiotapes from the interview with Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur.

These still-on-the-fence Republican senators who voted to confirm Garland include Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds and South Dakota Sen. John Thune, who was elected in November to replace longtime ally McConnell as Senate majority leader. Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst is also meeting with Hegseth for the second time Monday and has not said whether she will be voting in favor of his confirmation.

Many Republican Senators also voted to confirm Austin to run the Department of Defense (DOD), but some are cagey about expressing their voting plans for Hegseth, Trump’s DOD pick.

Hegseth is facing allegations of sexual assault, which he has adamantly denied and for which he has not been charged. In the weeks following the announcement of his nomination, left-leaning media outlets have run numerous stories alleging that he has a drinking problem and is sexually promiscuous. Colleagues from Fox News have defended Hegseth in response to these allegations, which he has also denied.

The Republican senators who voted to confirm Austin but have not revealed their vote for Hegseth include Rounds, Cassidy, Ernst, Collins, Thune, McConnell and Murkowski.

Collins and Murkowski both voted to confirm Mayorkas as DHS secretary. The two have dodged questioning about their plans on voting for Trump’s cabinet picks, despite previously supporting Biden’s.

Despite the uncertainty, the president-elect has stood by his nominations and stated that he believes the Senate will vote to confirm Hegseth. No Senate Democrats voted against any of Biden’s cabinet appointees.

AUTHOR

Henry Rodgers

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Seven GOP Senators Most Likely To Stand Between Trump And His Dream Cabinet

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