Congress
Senate GOP goes ‘nuclear’ to break Trump nominee gridlock
Senate Republicans deployed the so-called “nuclear option” on Thursday to begin clearing a pileup of President Donald Trump’s nominees, paving the way for them to be confirmed in potentially large groups starting next week.
The 53-45 vote to change the rules comes after frustration about the slow pace of confirmations boiled over in the GOP conference following the collapse of bipartisan negotiations over the summer to confirm a package of nominees.
The Senate still needs to finalize the rules change on the floor next week, but Thursday’s vote puts them on track to confirm a slate of 48 Trump nominees as a bloc instead of voting on them individually — a process that would otherwise take months.
“I made it clear that one of my priorities was to get the Senate functioning again, and the Senate can’t function effectively as a legislative body with the confirmation process in the state that it’s in right now,” Thune said ahead of the vote.
Some senators spent hours Thursday trying to find a bipartisan alternative to the party-line move. Those negotiating the agreement believed they were on the precipice of a deal but couldn’t get consent from all 100 senators to move forward with it. Democrats instead suggested talks continue through the weekend, sparking skepticism from some Republicans that they were really willing to make a deal.
“I’m legitimately shocked that we’re like 94 percent of the way there and somebody woke up and said, ‘You know what? Never mind, we’re going to do the thing we were planning on originally,’” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who was involved in the negotiations.
A visibly angry Thune shot back: “How much time is enough? The proposal that we are voting on … has been around for two years.”
Democrats have thrown up procedural roadblocks this week in protest of the GOP’s move to change nominations rules. They blocked quick confirmation of a slate of U.S. attorney nominees. And Republicans sent dozens of nominees who were approved in committee by proxy or voice votes back for reconsideration this week over concerns that Democrats would be able to challenge them on the floor.
Democrats characterized the rules change as only the latest instance of Republicans bending to Trump’s will.
“The story of this Republican majority has been a story of surrender of the Senate’s power over to Donald Trump,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier this week. “That’s especially true with the nominations process. What’s going on right now with nominations is beyond the pale.”
But Republicans have rebuffed some of Trump’s other nomination demands. They have not thus far allowed for recess appointments, which would let the president leapfrog the Senate entirely. And Republicans quickly rejected Trump’s push for them to set aside the “blue slip,” a precedent that lets senators effectively veto district court and some Justice Department nominees working in their home states.
And even as Democrats have protested the rules change, it’s not expected to grind all of the Senate’s business to a halt. Some Senate Democrats have privately questioned why the chamber spends so much time on nominations, while publicly Schumer and other Democratic senators are vowing to use the rules change against Republicans the next time they hold power.
Republicans said they reached out to Democratic senators earlier in their rules change discussions, but it was never likely there would be a bipartisan agreement given the growing politicization of the nominations process over the past decade.
Democrats got rid of the 60-vote threshold for most nominations in 2013, and Republicans subsequently got rid of the same threshold for the Supreme Court in 2017. Republicans also changed the rules during the first Trump administration to cut down on the amount of debate time required for most executive nominees as well as district court judges.
Congress
DHS stopgap set for quick House action after Rules Committee vote
The House Rules Committee advanced a measure Friday evening that would fund the entirety of the Homeland Security Department through May 22 — without setting up debate or a separate vote on the funding bill itself.
The panel, after a raucous meeting that devolved into shouting at multiple points, voted 8-4 on party lines to advance the measure to the floor.
The rule includes a “deem and pass” provision, a tactic that allows legislation to be passed by the House automatically once the rule itself is adopted. While there will be one hour of floor debate and a vote on the rule, there will not be a standalone House vote on the DHS spending bill.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) described himself as needing “a neck brace” from the whiplash of hearing Republicans argue for hours that the Senate’s early-morning voice vote on a different DHS funding measure was “shameful” for lack of transparency and accountability.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) accused the Senate of moving their bill “in the middle of the night, with the smell of jet fumes in the air,” lamenting that the House was left “to take it or leave it.”
House leaders, McGovern suggested, have chosen a similar path by fast-tracking the eight-week DHS stopgap.
“You’re in charge,” he told Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “You can do whatever the hell you want to do.”
Congress
Rand Paul weighs a 2028 presidential bid
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is considering a bid for president in 2028, as Republicans jockey for the future of the GOP post-Trump.
In a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview airing Sunday, a reporter asked Paul about an article that implied he would be running for president.
“We’re thinking about it,” Paul said. “I would say fifty-fifty,” adding that he would make a final decision after the midterm elections.
Paul ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 with a libertarianism-focused campaign but ultimately dropped out after a poor performance in the Iowa caucuses and a shortage of cash. He instead ran for reelection to the Senate.
Paul has had a complex relationship with his own party and with President Donald Trump, often finding himself the lone Republican on certain issues. More recently, he was the only Republican to support a joint resolution that would limit Trump’s war powers in Iran.
His father, former Rep. Ron Paul, also ran for president three times: first as a Libertarian in 1988, and twice as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.
Congress
‘Meltdown’: DHS shutdown set to drag on after House GOP rejects Senate deal
House Republicans moved Friday to further extend the six-week shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by rejecting a Senate bill that would fund the vast majority of DHS agencies through September.
Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a temporary extension of DHS funding through May 22 — a plan that has uncertain prospects in the House and certainly won’t pass the Senate before the shutdown becomes the longest funding lapse in U.S. history Saturday.
But Johnson said House Republicans simply could not swallow the Senate bill, which omits funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol and some other parts of Customs and Border Protection.
“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” he said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government. The Democrats fundamentally disagree.”
The move toward an eight-week stopgap creates a tactical gulf between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who called an end to weeks of abortive bipartisan talks Thursday and pushed through the funding bill in hopes of tacking on funding later for ICE and CBP in a party-line budget reconciliation bill.
President Donald Trump has largely stayed out of the GOP infighting on Capitol Hill, keeping his criticism trained on Democrats. He ordered DHS to pay TSA officers Thursday as long security lines snarls more U.S. airports.
Johnson played down the split with his Senate counterpart, saying the Democratic leader there bore more blame for the impasse.
“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” he said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House. … Our colleagues on this side understand this is not a game. We are not playing their games.”
Thune said early Friday morning he did not speak directly to Johnson in the final hours leading up to the Senate’s voice vote, but he said they had texted. He acknowledged he did not know in advance how the House would handle the Senate bill.
“Hopefully they’ll be around, and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there,” he said.
Johnson made his game plan clear with House Republicans on a private call just minutes before addressing reporters in the Capitol, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. He warned that a failure to advance the short-term DHS stopgap would upend GOP plans for a reconciliation bill, the people said.
He suggested the Senate could quickly clear the stopgap measure once it passes the House. Most senators have left Washington for a recess running through April 13, but Johnson said the chamber could approve the House measure by unanimous consent at a planned pro forma session Monday.
But some House Republicans on the private call, including Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, aired doubts it could pass the Senate — or even the House. Some fellow GOP centrists argued that the House should just swallow the Senate bill and end the standoff.
The House plan for a 60-day stopgap won a cold reception in the Senate, with even Republicans warning it will only prolong the partial government shutdown.
The plan is instead fueling frustration among both Republicans and Democrats who view House Republicans as essentially throwing temper tantrum. Three people granted anonymity to speak candidly each described the House as having a “meltdown.”
Schumer publicly slammed the House GOP plan Friday, saying it was “dead on arrival” across the Capitol, “and Republicans know it.”
A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly added that the quickest way to end the shutdown is for the House to pass the Senate bill.
Five people granted anonymity to comment on Senate dynamics said there was no possibility that Democrats would let the House GOP plan pass during the Senate’s brief pro forma sessions over the next two weeks. It would only take one Democratic senator to show up and object to any attempt to pass it.
The bill, according to the five people, also can’t get 60 votes in the Senate once the chamber returns. Democrats have previously rejected even shorter stopgaps, leaving some to privately question why House Republicans would ever think their plan would work.
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