In response, Republicans invoked the so-called “nuclear option” for the fourth time in Senate history, changing chamber rules to lower the threshold for advancing certain nominations from the standard 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster to a simple majority vote.
The decision has been a good one, if not necessary.
Last year, the Senate confirmed over 400 of Trump’s nominees.
The confirmation pace also surpassed Trump’s first-term numbers during the same period, when the Senate confirmed 323 nominees during his first year in office.
It also exceeded the total reached by Joe Biden, who had 365 nominees confirmed over a comparable timeframe.
At the same time, Republicans have another major challenge this week.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday that he would soon introduce a bill that would give the government a short-term extension to its broad surveillance powers that were about to expire.
This comes as Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on who should lead the intelligence community.
The goal of the move is to keep Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s spy powers from ending on Friday.
However, congressional Democrats have already said they won’t support such an extension unless the White House withdraws Bill Pulte’s nomination as acting director of national intelligence.
The Senate has not been able to agree on anything for days because of the FISA program. This program lets intelligence agencies spy on foreigners living in the United States without a warrant.
Lawmakers against the spy powers have also spoken out because they think they could be used to spy on American citizens.
