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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and his Republican colleagues are determined to resist efforts by the Democrats to stall the confirmation of President Trump’s nominees.
On Tuesday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., successfully blocked the full chamber from voting on CIA Director nominee John Ratcliffe’s confirmation.
Thune said on the Senate floor, “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 pointedly added, “This is about America’s national security interests, and we’re stalling, so that’s not going to happen.”
While Ratcliffe’s nomination received a bipartisan approval vote of 14 to 3 in the Senate Intelligence Committee, Murphy claimed that Ratcliffe “repeatedly politicized intelligence” while serving as the Director of National Intelligence during the last year of Trump’s first term.
Murphy blocked the vote to push for a two-day debate on the Senate floor.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., accused the Democrats of attempting “to drag out all these nominations to play procedural games,” and pointed out that prior to the last two administrations, the Senate rapidly confirmed the president’s nominees.
“We should especially get back to that practice when it is a highly accomplished, well-qualified nominee of integrity, like John Ratcliffe,” Cotton remarked.
“Now we’re going to spin our wheels for two days. But, as I said, don’t make plans for the weekend. Don’t have any dinner dates scheduled starting on Thursday night because we’re going to get these nominees done the easy, collegial way. Or apparently the hard way.” He added.
Thune reiterated his commitment to expediting Ratcliffe and others’ confirmations in a post on X, formerly Twitter. He shared a video of Cotton’s floor speech and captioned it with, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
On Wednesday morning, Fox News’ Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram provided a “User’s Manual” for Ratcliffe’s confirmation in a post on X.
He reported that the Democrats are “unlikely to relent to expedite confirmation,” noting that Thune filed “cloture” to break filibusters on Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, and Department of Homeland Security nominee Kristi Noem.
Senate rules require one day for a filed cloture to “ripen” before “invoking cloture,” which breaks a filibuster. Only 51 yes votes are needed to break a filibuster.
Pergram pointed out that Ratliffe’s position is not “recognized as a full-level cabinet position,” so the “post-cloture” ripening is only limited to two hours. Ratcliffe’s confirmation vote could come on Thursday morning.
For Hegseth, the Senate could vote to break the filibuster on Thursday when finished with Ratcliffe, but the Democrats could have 30 hours to oppose his nomination.
According to Pergram, the Republicans “could force the issue and call a confirmation vote on Hegseth – so long as someone is not speaking on the floor.”
He noted that the Republicans would need a “watchdog” to monitor the Senate floor to look for an opportunity to force the vote. Senate rules allow each senator one hour to speak on the floor after cloture.
While Democrats could certainly line up 30 senators to speak on the floor to delay the vote, Senate Minority Dick Durbin, D-IL, has previously suggested speeding up the process with a time agreement.
Many senators are not interested in working late into the night or on weekends. Democrat interference is merely a delay in the inevitable, as Trump’s nominees have enough votes to be confirmed to their positions.