Senate Majority Leader John Thune is reportedly working hard to get President Donald Trump’s outstanding nominees confirmed.
Just the News reported on Friday that Thune said he is keeping the Senate in session at least over the weekend to reach that goal, the news coming after the Senate was scheduled to begin a long recess on Saturday.
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Trump has pushed the Senate to remain in session instead of breaking for their traditional August recess, including Thursday when he reminded senators that his nominees should not be “forced to wait” longer to be confirmed.
Thune said he would keep the Senate in session at least this weekend to work on the confirmations and to negotiate with Democrats to speed up consideration of dozens of nominees. However, he said some of the negotiations will be done between the White House and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
In a video posted on Saturday, Thune said he wished he had better news to offer regarding the nominations, “but unfortunately the Democrats continue to engage in their historic obstruction.”
During a recent appearance on Breitbart News Daily, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Democrats are protecting their “obstructionist brand” when asked about the backlog of approximately 130 judges who have yet to be confirmed, the outlet reported on Friday. Blackburn noted it was also attorneys, ambassadors, and Cabinet-related positions.
She explained, “Cabinet secretaries are all confirmed, but their deputies and their.deputy assistants, those require a Senate confirmation. Now, generally, we will take some of these deputy assistants, U.S. attorneys, things of that nature, and we will do a group in block, and when we do this in block, you may get ten done at the same time. But the Democrats are in this obstructionist mindset, and they want to disagree with everything.”
She said Trump deserves to have the positions filled because it was what the American people voted for, stating, “It was a mandate.”
“So make the Democrats stay here and vote, and then maybe they’ll come to the table and say, ‘Ok, we’ll work with you.’ But you know what I heard one Democrat talk about, well, they liked so-and-so, but they were going to vote against them because it was their brand,” Blackburn stated, adding they are “protecting this obstructionist-type brand.”
In May, Thune was pleased with the GOP majority’s breakneck pace, saying they were working hard, according to Breitbart News.
“That’s a departure from where we were the past four years under Schumer. Obviously, the goal is to confirm the president’s team as quickly as possible,” he stated. “We did that with his cabinet — the fastest rate in more than 20 years. We’ve had the Senate in session for more than ten consecutive weeks for the first time in 15 years.”
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