{"id":21767,"date":"2026-04-23T12:18:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-senate-gop-braces-for-cabinet-shakeup\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T12:18:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:18:41","slug":"capitol-agenda-senate-gop-braces-for-cabinet-shakeup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-senate-gop-braces-for-cabinet-shakeup\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Senate GOP braces for Cabinet shakeup"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Trump administration saw yet another high-profile departure Wednesday, with Navy Secretary John Phelan heading to the exits. Senate Republicans are bracing for even more.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s recent administration shakeup \u2014 the sacking of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi as well as this week\u2019s departure of Lori Chavez-DeRemer \u2014 has created openings for a slew of potential confirmations, and GOP senators are contemplating who might be next and how quickly Trump should make any further changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No Republicans are publicly urging any particular oustings. But privately GOP senators believe Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel could be at risk of leaving \u2014 voluntarily or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s in a bad mood,\u201d one GOP senator said about Trump. \u201cHe\u2019s preparing to really let a lot of them go.\u201d<\/p>\n

A further Cabinet shakeup would add more onto the Senate\u2019s plate, and some GOP senators want anyone eyeing an exit to do it sooner rather than later to give the lawmakers the longest runway possible for confirming a successor.<\/p>\n

On their minds is looming work on a budget reconciliation bill (maybe two), soon-to-lapse surveillance powers, a spate of lower-level nominations plus a potential Supreme Court vacancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of working days are very limited,\u201d Sen. Thom Tillis said in an interview. \u201cYou just do the math. It\u2019s a very compressed schedule.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to mention the looming midterms \u2014 and the possibility the GOP could lose control of the chamber.<\/p>\n

Another GOP senator granted anonymity to speak candidly said that it would \u201cmake sense to do it now\u201d and \u201cyou never know what\u2019s going to happen to the Senate\u201d in the midterms.<\/p>\n

But several acknowledged the obvious: Trump will move on his own timeline.<\/p>\n

And Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate already has a \u201cfull plate, so confirming new people is going to take a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

What else we’re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 <\/i>Eyes on the House after Senate vote-a-rama:<\/b> Just after 3:30 a.m., the Senate voted 50-48 to green-light the GOP\u2019s plan<\/a> to send tens of billions of dollars to immigration enforcement agencies in the coming years. Now House Republicans need to approve the budget blueprint before GOP leaders can move on to crafting the party-line package itself. Thune told reporters that Speaker Mike Johnson hasn\u2019t guaranteed the House can adopt the budget resolution in its current form.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The latest on 702:<\/b> Thune early Thursday also filed cloture on a three-year extension of the key spy authority known as Section 702 \u2014 an insurance policy in case the House can\u2019t agree to a plan. \u201cIf the House can\u2019t move by sometime tomorrow, then my assumption is we\u2019re going to have to figure it out next week because we can\u2019t afford to go dark,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration saw yet another high-profile departure Wednesday, with Navy Secretary John Phelan heading to the exits. Senate Republicans are bracing for even more. President Donald Trump\u2019s recent administration shakeup \u2014 the sacking of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi as well as this week\u2019s departure of Lori Chavez-DeRemer \u2014 has created openings for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}