Senate Republicans Erupt Over Dem ‘Stalling’ Of Trump Nominees

Leading Senate Republicans have been delivering fiery rebukes as their Democrat colleagues slowed down the process of confirming President Donald Trump‘s Cabinet nominees for his nascent second term in the White House.

After Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) objected to a so-called time agreement that would have allowed a final vote on John Ratcliffe‘s nomination to become CIA director on Tuesday, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) voiced his dismay in remarks on the Senate floor while stressing that the upper chamber would press ahead with Trump’s picks.

“We’ve now wasted a whole day where we could have been acting on that nomination,” Thune said, adding that the question before the Senate was “do we want a vote on these folks on Tuesday or vote on them on Friday, Saturday and Sunday? Because that’s what we’re going to do. This can be easy or this can be hard.”

Thune highlighted that Ratcliffe, a former House Republican from Texas who served as director of national intelligence at the end of Trump’s first term, sailed through the Senate Intelligence Committee by a 14-3 vote with bipartisan support.

“This is about America’s national security interests. And we’re stalling,” Thune continued. “So that’s not going to happen. We’re going to file cloture on them. You can force us to stay here, staying around here. And we can vote on these things Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But we’re going to vote on them.”

CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT

Thune also took procedural steps that will pave the way to final confirmation votes in the coming days for Ratcliffe’s nomination, as well as South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s nomination to become Homeland Security secretary and Pete Hegseth’s nomination to become Defense secretary — both of whom have advanced out of committee, too.

With a post to X featuring a video of his remarks, Thune suggested there could even be recess appointments. Trump has advocated for installing his own nominees in such a manner, during a recess, if the Senate fails to confirm them in a “timely manner.”

In rejecting the Senate Republicans’ bid to proceed more swiftly with a confirmation vote on Ratcliffe’s nomination, Murphy said he wanted a “full” debate that lasted a couple more days while insisting that some members had “serious concerns” that the CIA pick would not be able to “distance himself from the political interests of President Trump.”

But Senate Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) wasn’t buying it. He rejected Murphy’s claim about Democrats needing more time to discuss Ratcliffe’s nomination and surmised that “what this is really about is trying to drag out all of these nominations to play procedural games, as we’re about to, with Pete Hegseth’s nomination to try to deny President Trump his Cabinet in a prompt and timely fashion.”

So far, the GOP-led Senate has approved just one of Trump’s Cabinet nominees: now-former senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, who on Tuesday was sworn in to office as U.S. Secretary of State after being confirmed by a unanimous vote on Monday.

While some delays may be due to paperwork, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that Democrats pushed back a meeting to vote on advancing the nomination of Pam Bondi to become U.S. attorney general by a week with a hold allowed under the rules.

Related News