Senate GOP barrels past blockade to advance nearly 100 Trump nominees
Senate Republicans rammed through the first procedural hurdle on their road to confirming nearly 100 of President Donald Trump's nominees on Wednesday.The move tees up a later vote on 97...
By Fox News · Fox News
Senate Republicans rammed through the first procedural hurdle on their road to confirming nearly 100 of President Donald Trump's nominees on Wednesday. The move tees up a later vote on 97 of Trump’s picks and marks the third time Senate Republicans advanced a bloc of the president’s nominees since changing the confirmation rules in September. The final vote to confirm the latest tranche of picks is expected next week. Once Republicans clear this latest package, they will have confirmed over 400 of Trump’s picks during the first year of his second term. DEM ATTEMPT TO THWART TRUMP NOMS BACKFIRES, REPUBLICANS TEE UP NEARLY 100 FOR CONFIRMATION That benchmark would place him well ahead of former President Joe Biden , who at the same point in his presidency had 350 of his nominees confirmed. Among the list of nominees are former Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., to serve as inspector general at the Department of Labor, and two picks for the National Labor Relations Board, James Murphy and Scott Mayer, among several others across nearly every federal agency. SENATE CONFIRMS DOZENS OF TRUMP NOMINEES IN FIRST TEST OF NEW NUCLEAR RULES The inclusion of Murphy and Mayer in the package comes after Trump fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, a move that was ultimately found to be legal by the Supreme Court earlier this year. It’s also Senate Republicans’ second attempt to move this package after Sen. Michael Bennet , D-Colo., objected last week in a bid to derail the process. Senate Republicans went nuclear and changed the rules surrounding the confirmation process in a bid to break through Senate Democrats’ monthslong blockade of Trump’s nominees and limited the scope to only sub-Cabinet-level positions that would be advanced through a simple, 50-vote majority. SENATE GOP LEADER MOVES TO LOWER FILIBUSTER THRESHOLD FOR TRUMP NOMINEES THROUGH NUCLEAR OPTION But one of the nominees in the original package, Sara Carter, a former Fox News contributor whose leg…