Senate confirms 48 Trump nominees in single vote, after Republicans went ‘nuclear’ to speed up confirmations
The Senate confirmed 48 of President Donald Trump’s nominees in one sweeping vote Thursday, marking the first bloc confirmed after Republicans voted to change Senate rules to speed up the consideration of nominees.
Those confirmed included Kimberly Guilfoyle as the ambassador to Greece, Christine Toretti as the ambassador to Sweden and Callista Gingrich as the ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Former GOP Rep. Brandon Williams was also confirmed as under secretary for nuclear security.
The move by Senate Republicans comes after last week they pushed through a change to Senate rules using the so-called nuclear option over the objections of Democrats. The rules change allows nominees to be considered en bloc, or as a group, as tensions have grown over several months between the two parties over the backlog of Trump’s nominees awaiting Senate confirmation.
GOP senators have complained for months that Democrats, who are angry over many of Trump’s actions, have slow-walked virtually all of his nominees and are making it hard on the new administration to get fully up and running. Democrats, they argue, have abandoned what they call Senate “precedent” to confirm many lower-level jobs by voice vote or unanimous consent and in groups of nominees, not just individually.
Meanwhile, Democrats, who years ago used the “nuclear option” to weaken the filibuster for nominees in the face of GOP intransigence, complain the GOP plan means unqualified nominees will escape scrutiny – something Republicans deny.
Republicans’ rule change applies only to executive branch civilian nominees, not Cabinet members nor the judiciary.