Happy New Year 2025

Tag: nominees

Trump targets McConnell’s mental acuity as former leader joins Dems against key nominees

President Donald Trump derided former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as “not equipped mentally” after he went from being the face of the GOP in the upper chamber to opposing his entire conference and voting with the Democrats on Trump’s key Cabinet nominations in just a matter of months.

“He wasn’t equipped ten years ago, mentally, in my opinion,” Trump told reporters at the White House after McConnell refused to vote in favor of confirming his controversial Health and Human Services (HHS) pick, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“He’s a, you know, very bitter guy,” Trump added of McConnell, with whom he has had a strained relationship with over the years, including during his previous presidency.

TRUMP AGRICULTURE PICK CONFIRMED AS PRESIDENT RACKS UP CABINET WINS

The GOP’s recent and longest-serving Senate party leader has stood in opposition to his conference multiple times, demonstrating the party’s significant transformation in the age of Trump. (Reuters)

While such a shift from GOP leader to defiant Republican might be optically jarring, the move was unsurprising to Jim Manley, former senior communications advisor and spokesman for former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic Caucus.

“He was living on borrowed time the last couple of years,” he told Fox News Digital of McConnell. Manley speculated that if he hadn’t decided to step down from leadership voluntarily before the 119th Congress, he would have had significant trouble being re-elected. “[I]t’s evident just how exactly out of step he is with the caucus,” he said, noting that it has become “much more conservative.”

In three pivotal Senate votes on Trump’s most vulnerable Cabinet nominees in the last few weeks, McConnell bucked his party. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s nomination was confirmed by a razor-thin margin, 51-50, after Vice President JD Vance was called in to break the tie.

TULSI GABBARD SWORN IN AT WHITE HOUSE HOURS AFTER SENATE CONFIRMATION

McConnell and Trump have had a thorny relationship. (Reuters)

Moderate GOP Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined him in voting against the controversial defense pick.

However, McConnell was the only Republican to vote against the similarly controversial Director of National Intelligence (DNI) nominee Tulsi Gabbard and HHS pick Kennedy. Even Collins, Murkowski, and several other senators with reputations for being somewhat hesitant got behind them.

“If Senator McConnell was looking to accelerate the deterioration of his legacy as the former Republican Senate leader, he’s succeeded,” a Senate GOP source remarked. They described the Kentucky Republican’s actions as “an attempt to embarrass the president and the Republican Party” and evidence “of why he was no longer fit to lead our conference.”

McConnell released lengthy statements following each vote, explaining his reasoning. He also wished each of them well and committed to working with them.

DOGE ‘PLAYBOOK’ UNVEILED BY GOP SENATOR AS MUSK-LED AGENCY SHAKES UP FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Hegseth was confirmed after JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)

A defense hawk and chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, McConnell was unconvinced that Hegseth or Gabbard were the best national security selections.

As for Kennedy, McConnell recalled his childhood experience with polio and touted the effectiveness of vaccines, of which the now-HHS secretary has been consistently critical.

McConnell did vote in favor of Trump’s other, less-controversial and lesser-known Cabinet nominees.

Republican strategist Matt Dole called the former leader “an enigma.”

“[H]e sought to rule the Republican Caucus with an iron fist when he was leader,” he pointed out.

“That makes his own, lonely, votes stand out as all the more egregious.”

McConnell’s successor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., reacted to the “no” votes in an interview with Fox News Digital. “I think he knows better than anybody how hard it is to lead a place like the United States Senate, where it takes 60 votes to get most things done, and that you got to have everybody, sort of functioning as a team,” he said.

According to Thune, McConnell “is still active up here and still a strong voice on issues he’s passionate about, including national security, and so when it comes to those issues, he has outsized influence and a voice that we all pay attention to.”

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Thune succeeded McConnell as Senate GOP leader. (Reuters)

He explained that while the conference doesn’t necessarily agree with him, “we respect his positions on these, some of these [nominations], and I know that a lot of big stuff ahead of us, he’s going to be with us. He’s a team player.”

One former top Senate Republican strategist explained the former leader has “nothing to lose” at this point. In fact, they said, the feelings he is expressing about Trump’s most controversial selections actually reflects those of a number of other senators. But they can’t oppose the picks themselves “for fear of retribution by Trump or primary voters that will make a difference on whether or not they remain in power.”

“Not being in leadership can be quite liberating,” GOP strategist John Feehery added.

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According to Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University, “I think he wants to make a symbolic statement in favor of an older Reagan-era type of conservatism and a more traditional Republican Party—this is the way he wants to be remembered.”

McConnell’s office declined to comment to Fox News Digital.

Julia Johnson is a politics writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business, leading coverage of the U.S. Senate. She was previously a politics reporter at the Washington Examiner.

Follow Julia’s reporting on X at @JuliaaJohnson_ and send tips to [email protected].

February 16, 2025
Trump NIH and FDA nominees debut new scientific journal aimed at spurring debate

President Donald Trump’s nominees to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are part of a group of scientists who just launched a new research journal focused on spurring scientific discourse and combating “gatekeeping” in the medical research community.

The journal, titled the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH), includes an editorial board consisting of several scientists who complained of facing censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic.

JAPH’s co-founders include Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard Medical School professor who is a founding fellow at Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University who is also Trump’s nominee to be the next NIH director. Kulldorff and Bhattacharya became known during the pandemic for authoring The Great Barrington Declaration, which sought to challenge the broader medical community’s prevailing notions about COVID-19 mitigation strategies, arguing that – in the long run – the lockdowns that people were facing would do more harm than good.

CDC STAFF TOLD TO REMOVE TERMS LIKE ‘NON-BINARY,’ ‘THEY/THEM,’ ‘PREGNANT PEOPLE’ FROM PUBLIC HEALTH MATERIAL

Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, who is Trump’s nominee to be the next director of the FDA, is on the journal’s editorial board as well.

Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, left, appears alongside Johns Hopkins University’s Dr. Marty Makary. (Getty Images/Fox News)

JAPH is adopting a novel approach by publishing peer reviews of prominent studies from other journals that do not make their peer reviews publicly available. The effort is aimed at spurring scientific discourse, Kulldorff said in a paper outlining the purposes of the journal’s creation.

The journal will also seek to promote “open access” by making all of its work available to everyone in the public without a paywall, he said, and the journal’s editorial leadership will allow all scientists within its network to “freely publish all their research results in a timely and efficient manner,” to prevent any potential “gatekeeping.”

“Scientific journals have had enormous positive impact on the development of science, but in some ways, they are now hampering rather than enhancing open scientific discourse,” Kulldorff said. “After reviewing the history and current problems with journals, a new academic publishing model is proposed – it embraces open access and open rigorous peer review, it rewards reviewers for their important work with honoraria and public acknowledgment and it allows scientists to publish their research in a timely and efficient manner without wasting valuable scientist time and resources.”

‘WHAT A RIPOFF!’: TRUMP SPARKS BACKLASH AFTER CUTTING BILLIONS IN OVERHEAD COSTS FROM NIH RESEARCH GRANTS

Kulldorff, Bhattacharya, Makary and others on the new journal’s leadership team have complained that their views about the COVID-19 pandemic were censored. These were views that were often contrary to the prevailing ideas put forth by the broader medical community at the time, which related to topics such as vaccine efficacy, natural immunity, lockdowns and more.

(Censorship was a common complaint from medical researchers like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, who were among the few scientists who promoted ideas like herd immunity and challenged the efficacy of lockdowns and vaccine mandates.)

“Big tech censored the [sic] all kinds of science on natural immunity,” Makary said in testimony to Congress following the pandemic. During his testimony, Makary also shared how one of his own studies at Johns Hopkins during the pandemic that promoted the effectiveness of natural immunity, which one scientific journal listed as its third most discussed study in 2022, “was censored.”

“Because of my views on COVID-19 restrictions, I have been specifically targeted for censorship by federal government officials,” Bhattacharya added in his own testimony to Congress the same year.

Kulldorff, who has also complained about censorship of his views on COVID-19, argued he was asked to leave his medical professorship at Harvard that he held since 2003, for “clinging to the truth” in his opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

CONSERVATIVE LAW FIRM LAUNCHES PROBE INTO FIVE MAJOR UNIVERSITIES FOR ALLEGED ‘CENSORSHIP REGIME’

Dr. Martin Kulldorff is a former Harvard Medical School professor. (Getty Images)

“The JAPH will ensure quality through open peer-review, but will not gatekeep new and important ideas for the sake of established orthodoxies,” Andrew Noymer, JAPH’s incoming editor-in-chief told Fox News Digital.

“To pick one example, in my own sub-field of infectious disease epidemiology, we have in the past few years seen too little published scholarship on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Academic publishing as it exists today is too often concerned with preservation of what we think we know, too often to the detriment of new ideas.”

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Bhattacharya and Makary did not wish to comment on this article.

February 11, 2025
Where Trump’s Cabinet nominees stand in Senate confirmation process

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel testified before Senate committees on Capitol Hill Thursday as urgency builds to confirm President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS), faced his second day of questioning on the Hill before the Senate Committee on Health, Education Labor & Pensions on Thursday. Kennedy clashed with Democratic senators over abortion and vaccines on Wednesday before the Senate Finance Committee, which will vote on his confirmation.

RFK JR’S CONFIRMATION HEARING GOES OFF RAILS AMID MULTIPLE CLASHES WITH DEM SENATORS: ‘REPEATEDLY DEBUNKED’

Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday as Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for national intelligence director, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Tulsi Gabbard arrives to testify during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 30, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Also on Thursday, Trump’s nominee for Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, the relatively unknown soldier and former advisor to Vice President JD Vance, fielded questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Once nominees have testified before relevant Senate committees, that panel votes on whether to recommend the nominee before the full Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., can then file a motion to end Senate floor debate on the nominee, triggering a cloture vote to halt deliberations. Once debate closes, senators make final confirmation votes.

‘LIES AND SMEARS’: TULSI GABBARD RAILS AGAINST DEM NARRATIVE SHE’S TRUMP’S AND PUTIN’S ‘PUPPET’

For confirmation, a nominee needs a majority in the Senate, or 51 votes. Vice President JD Vance can settle a tie vote, as was the case with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, arrives for a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on Jan. 21, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Elise Stefanik, nominee for United Nations ambassador, testified before the Foreign Relations Committee last week, and the committee voted to advance her nomination to the Senate floor on Thursday.

Stefanik joins Trump’s nominees for director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russ Vought, secretary for Department of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner, and attorney general, Pam Bondi, among those who have been voted out of committee and await a vote on the Senate floor.

SPARKS EXPECTED TO FLY AT KASH PATE’S SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARING TO LEAD FBI

Agriculture Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins, nominee for Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and nominee for Small Business administrator, Kelly Loeffler, have testified but await scheduling for Senate committee votes. Kennedy also awaits a vote by the Finance Committee as he testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education Labor and Pensions Thursday.

President Donald Trump and Sen. Kelly Loeffler attend a campaign rally on Jan. 4, 2021, in Dalton, Georgia. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Thune moved to end Senate deliberations for Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright and Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. Both nominees await a procedural vote on the Senate floor ahead of the confirmation vote.

Trump’s nominee for Interior secretary, Doug Burgum, passed the cloture vote on Wednesday and awaits his confirmation vote on the Senate floor.

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As of Thursday, the U.S. Senate has confirmed seven of Trump’s Cabinet nominations, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Krisit Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Environmental Protection Agency Administration Lee Zeldin.

January 30, 2025
Senate hearings for Trump nominees resume on Capitol Hill

The Senate will have separate committee hearings for three of President Donald Trump’s administration nominees on Wednesday, including former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is considered one of his more vulnerable picks.

At approximately 10 a.m. on Wednesday, hearings for both Kennedy in the Finance Committee and Howard Lutnick in the Commerce Committee will begin.

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Kennedy and Loeffler will have committee hearings on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Trump picked Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), while Lutnick is the president’s choice for Commerce secretary.

In the afternoon, Kelly Loeffler goes before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The hearing for Trump’s pick to lead the Small Business Administration starts at 3:30 p.m.

GARY PETERS, DEMOCRATIC SENATOR FROM TRUMP STATE, WON’T SEEK RE-ELECTION

Howard Lutnick is being considered for secretary of commerce. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Several of Trump’s nominees have already been confirmed, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Transportation Secretary-designate Sean Duffy.

While the Hegseth confirmation came down to the wire, with Vice President JD Vance being needed to break a tie in the Senate, there’s been some indication that other Trump nominees such as Kennedy, former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and potentially Kash Patel will have their own uphill battles to getting confirmed.

TRUMP’S MOST VULNERABLE NOMINEES RFK JR, TULSI GABBARD GET BACK-TO-BACK HEARINGS

Kelly Loeffler is a former senator from Georgia. (Alyssa Pointer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Gabbard is Trump’s choice to be director of national intelligence, and Patel is nominated to be the next attorney general.

While the Finance Committee will ultimately vote on whether to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the Senate floor, he will also have a hearing on Thursday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions because of the position’s relevance to public health.

PETE HEGSETH CONFIRMED TO LEAD PENTAGON AFTER VP VANCE CASTS TIE-BREAKING VOTE

Kennedy is one of Trump’s more controversial picks. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images)

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Senators on both sides of the aisle in the Finance Committee are expected to ask Kennedy for clarifications on his past statements regarding vaccines and how he would apply his beliefs if confirmed to lead HHS.

Julia Johnson is a politics writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business, leading coverage of the U.S. Senate. She was previously a politics reporter at the Washington Examiner.

Follow Julia’s reporting on X at @JuliaaJohnson_ and send tips to [email protected].

January 29, 2025
Leavitt says egg shortage, grocery prices why Senate must ‘move swiftly’ to confirm Trump nominees

President Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt urged members of Congress to confirm Trump’s nominees to address problems like the U.S. egg shortage and the cost of living crisis.

“This is an example of why it’s so incredibly important that the Senate moves swiftly to confirm all of President Trump’s nominees, including his nominee for the United States Department of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, who is already speaking with Kevin Hassett, who’s leading the economic team here at the White House, on how we can address the egg shortage in this country,” Leavitt told reporters Tuesday at her first White House press briefing.

“We also have seen the cost of everything, not just eggs, bacon, groceries, gasoline, have increased because of the inflationary policies of the last administration,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt’s comments came directly after Democrats took several jabs at Trump’s handling of the cost of living crisis just days after his inauguration, citing rising prices for eggs amid larger conversations about the price of groceries and cost of living as a whole.

While the consumer price index shows consumer prices increased roughly 20% under former President Joe Biden’s administration, Democrats remain skeptical that Trump’s economic proposals will prove effective.

“The price of eggs and the cost of living was supposed to go down. Not up,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a post on X on Friday.

SHELLING OUT: EGG PRICES RISE NEARLY 37 PERCENT

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized President Donald Trump’s economic plans, saying, “The price of eggs and the cost of living was supposed to go down. Not up.” (Getty Images)

“Trump’s ‘concepts of a plan’ at work,” Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., said in a post on X on Friday, pointing to a photo claiming a dozen eggs cost nearly $9. It’s unclear where the photo originated or its authenticity.

Subramanyam’s post referenced Trump’s comments that he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the Affordable Care Act, during a September 2024 presidential debate with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, the consumer price index shows egg prices have soared nearly 37% in the past year. For example, a dozen Grade A large eggs cost an average of $4.15 in December — up from $2.51 in December 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In some states like California, those numbers have gone up to nearly $9 per dozen in certain areas. California, like other states including Arizona, Massachusetts and Michigan, requires all eggs sold in the state to come from cage-free hens, which typically are more expensive.

The rise in egg prices comes amid high demand and a massive outbreak of avian flu, known as the highly pathogenic avian influenza, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture attributes to killing more than 20 million egg-laying hens in the last quarter of 2024. All birds from an infected flock are culled, exacerbating the impact of the flu.

Leavitt on Tuesday blamed this killing policy for contributing to the egg shortage.

“The Biden Administration’s slow and ineffective response to the avian influenza outbreak, which began in 2022, has negatively impacted U.S. poultry producers, and his USDA forced farmers to massively cut their livestock populations,” Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, said in a Monday statement to Fox News Digital.

As a result, Kelly said Trump and Rollins would take “bold, decisive action” to address problems related to the avian flu, and direct the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to refocus on the health of animals and plants.

Democrats previously have questioned Trump’s ability to reduce grocery prices, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said in early January that “Trump has no idea” how to cut down such prices.

SWALWELL SLAMMED ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR QUESTIONING HOW TRUMP WILL LOWER GROCERY PRICES

Rep. Eric Swalwell has cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s ability to reduce the prices of groceries. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“I don’t care if Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland. I just want to know what he’s going to do to lower the cost of groceries,” Rep. Swalwell wrote on X on Jan. 7.

Vice President JD Vance addressed the cost of groceries in an interview Sunday with CBS’ Margaret Brennan, citing several executive orders that Trump signed his first week in office focused on the economy and reducing energy prices. Among those orders was a directive instructing every department and agency to address the cost of living crisis.

VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE PRESSED ON WHEN GROCERY PRICES WILL COME DOWN: ‘WHICH ONE LOWERS PRICES?’

Vice President JD Vance clashed with CBS’ Margaret Brennan on several topics, including the prices of groceries in an interview on Jan. 26, 2025. (CBS screenshot)

“Prices are going to come down, but it’s going to take a little bit of time, right?” Vance said. “The president has been president for all of five days. I think that, in those five days, he’s accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years.”

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The state of the economy ranked as the top issue in the 2024 election, according to a Gallup poll conducted in September 2024.

Voters also believed Trump better equipped to address the economy than his opponent, Harris. While 54% of American voters claimed Trump could better handle the economy, only 45% backed Kamala, the poll found.

Fox Business’ Alexandra Koch and Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.

Diana Stancy is a politics reporter with Fox News Digital covering the White House.

January 28, 2025
Trump’s most vulnerable nominees RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard get back-to-back hearings

Two of President Donald Trump’s most vulnerable administration picks will get back-to-back confirmation hearings in the Senate this week.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom he selected to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), will have committee confirmation hearings on Wednesday and Thursday.

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On Wednesday, Kennedy will have his first hearing with the Senate Finance Committee, who will eventually vote on whether to advance his nomination to the full Senate. He will have an additional hearing on Thursday with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), but that committee will not have a vote on the nomination.

Two of Trump’s more controversial nominees will have back-to-back hearings in the Senate. (Reuters)

Gabbard’s hearing with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will take place Thursday morning.

The two Trump picks were some of the more controversial administration selections. Both Kennedy and Gabbard are former Democrats with histories of policy positions that clash with what many Republican senators believe.

At issue for lawmakers on both sides is Kennedy’s history of significant criticism of vaccines and vaccination programs. For some Republicans whose states have a large farming constituency, his positions on further regulating agriculture and food production have been cause for concern.

TIM SCOTT EMPHASIZES ‘RESULTS’ OVER RECONCILIATION PROCESS AS HE STAYS OUT OF DEBATE

COVID vaccines have faced continued criticism since the pandemic. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

Gabbard’s past policy stances as they relate to national security have given bipartisan lawmakers some reason for pause, since the role she is nominated for is critical to the nation’s safety and defense.

Both of the nominees have taken steps to moderate themselves amid the confirmation process. Kennedy has pushed back on suggestions that he is “anti-vaccine” and explained, “If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.”

DEM WHO CALLED TRUMP ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY’ NOW BLOCKING HIS NOMINEES

Kennedy’s past remarks on vaccines have been in the spotlight. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

“People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “So I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”

Gabbard recently made a remarkable reversal on a controversial intelligence tool used by the government. And her choice to change her position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) section 702 managed to win her the backing of a Republican senator on the intel committee that she will need to advance out of.

HEGSETH LAWYER SLAMS ‘FLAWED AND QUESTIONABLE AFFIDAVIT’ FROM EX-SISTER-IN-LAW

Gabbard has been nominated to be director of national intelligence. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)

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Recently asked whether her change of heart on section 702 had earned his vote, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said, “Yeah, I am, and that was a very important piece for me.”

While both nominees have gotten some necessary Republican backing in the relevant committees, not everyone has said whether they will vote to advance the selections. And even if they are voted out of the committees, they could still face an uphill battle to be confirmed by the full Senate.

Julia Johnson is a politics writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business, leading coverage of the U.S. Senate. She was previously a politics reporter at the Washington Examiner.

Follow Julia’s reporting on X at @JuliaaJohnson_ and send tips to [email protected].

January 27, 2025
Schumer supports Democrats delaying all Trump nominees that lack unanimous support

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he supports the delay of all of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees who do not have unanimous support in the Senate.

Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., filed cloture on John Ratcliffe’s nomination for CIA director, Kristi Noem’s nomination for Homeland Security secretary and Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary on Tuesday. But a last-minute objection from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., held up a vote on Ratcliffe, triggering hours of debate that could delay confirmation votes on Trump’s national security nominees late into the week and possibly into the weekend.

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask to make sure that we have a full, real debate that lasts two days on the Senate floor,” Murphy said on the Senate floor, adding that Democrats have “serious concerns” about Trump’s CIA pick.

The Senate voted to confirm Ratcliffe, 74-25, on Thursday afternoon.

SEN THUNE SUGGESTS STAYING THROUGH WEEKEND TO CONFIRM TRUMP PICKS AFTER DEMS DELAY VOTES: ‘SHOULDN’T BE HARD’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks at a press conference with other Senate Democrats on reproductive rights in Washington on Jan. 22, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Asked on Thursday if he supports slowing the confirmation process for Trump’s nominees down, Schumer indicated that he does.

“Look, there are some nominees like [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio that got broad support, but a detailed discussion – I have some doubts about Mr. Ratcliffe, particularly when I asked him how he’d react if Tulsi Gabbard were put in charge of him in the DNI,” Schumer said, referring to Trump’s pick to lead the Office of National Intelligence.

NEW GOP SENATOR TEARS INTO DEMS ‘SEEKING TO DELAY’ PETE HEGSETH DOD CONFIRMATION

Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, John Ratcliffe, appears for a Senate Intelligence confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 15, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“For a day or two, or a few hours to examine these nominees who have such power thoroughly, absolutely,” he added. “Our idea is to let the whole truth come out if they try to rush them through. We don’t want that to happen.”

Thune on Tuesday expressed frustration with Democrats over their delay tactics.

CONFIRMATION DELAYS STACK UP FOR TRUMP NOMINEES AS PAPERWORK LAGS IN FEDERAL OFFICES

Republican Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. (Getty Images)

“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 said. “This is about America’s national security interests, and we’re stalling, so that’s not going to happen.”

Ratcliffe was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee by a bipartisan vote of 14-3. Because of that, Thune said the vote to confirm him “shouldn’t be hard.”

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“Democrats and Republicans, in a very big bipartisan fashion, agree that he is very qualified for this job,” Thune said, adding that he isn’t sure what stalling accomplishes.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.

Aishah Hasnie serves as a FOX News Channel (FNC) senior national correspondent based in Washington D.C. She joined the network in February 2019 and was promoted to her current role in 2024.

January 23, 2025
Dem who called Trump ‘existential threat to democracy’ now blocking his nominees

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., disrupted Senate Republicans’ plans to quickly confirm President Donald Trump’s national security nominees on Tuesday night when he objected to bypassing lengthy procedural votes that are routinely skipped.

“Unfortunately, we were at the point of almost having a consent agreement to have a vote on the confirmation of John Ratcliffe to be the CIA director tomorrow. Not today, not yesterday, when it should have happened, but tomorrow,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said on the chamber floor. “But the senator from Connecticut has decided to object at the last minute.”

“I don’t really understand the objection to Mr. Ratcliffe. He was confirmed by the Senate to be the director of National intelligence. He was fully vetted through the bipartisan process in the Senate Intelligence Committee. We voted him out yesterday on a 14 to 3 vote,” Cotton, also the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, continued.

HEGSETH LAWYER SLAMS ‘FLAWED AND QUESTIONABLE AFFIDAVIT’ FROM EX-SISTER-IN-LAW

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., left, and Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. (Reuters)

During his objection, Murphy said there were “serious concerns” from some Democrats about Trump’s CIA pick John Ratcliffe. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask to make sure that we have a full, real debate that lasts two days on the Senate floor,” he said.

The Connecticut Democrat notably previewed Trump’s eventual second presidency over the summer. “There’s a lot of anxiety in the country and in the party today, and that’s because the stakes are so high,” he said.

“That’s because Donald Trump presents an existential threat to democracy. He has advertised he is going to transition this country from a democracy to a dictatorship,” Murphy claimed in a July appearance on CNN.

REPUBLICAN LEADERS STILL AT ODDS ON RECONCILIATION DEBATE AFTER TRUMP MEETING

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chairs the intelligence committee. (Getty Images)

Murphy’s Tuesday night objection to speeding through the routine procedural votes is the first case of Democrats using the strategy Republicans employed while in the Senate minority to gain leverage to negotiate.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., expressed his frustration with the objection on the floor, saying, “OK, so 14 to 3 coming out of the committee. And we’ve now wasted a whole day where we could have been acting on that nomination.”

“And so really, I think the question before the House is, 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,” he said, threatening weekend votes in the upper chamber.

NEW SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO PAUSES REFUGEE OPERATIONS, RAMPS UP VISA VETTING

John Ratcliffe is President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the CIA. (Getty Images)

“This can be easy or this can be hard.”

Murphy foreshadowed this type of defiance while speaking to reporters last week.

“I think Republicans changed the rules here over the last two years,” he said. “They used extraordinary powers to block nominees and to lengthen every process.”

NEW OHIO AND FLORIDA SENATE-APPOINTEES SWORN IN AS VANCE AND RUBIO’S REPLACEMENTS

Murphy foreshadowed the move last week. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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“The rules are different now, they changed the way the Senate works,” he reiterated.

Thune took the necessary actions to tee up eventual votes on Ratcliffe; Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth; and Trump’s pick for Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem. Since there is no agreement with Democrats to limit debate and bypass certain procedural votes, the nominations will not ripen for confirmation votes for more than a day.

Julia Johnson is a politics writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business, leading coverage of the U.S. Senate. She was previously a politics reporter at the Washington Examiner.

Follow Julia’s reporting on X at @JuliaaJohnson_ and send tips to [email protected].

January 23, 2025
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to a probable weekend session to confirm Trump nominees

We’re quickly approaching the fourth weekend of 2025.

And the Senate is already running behind.

This could trigger weekend Senate sessions as Senate Republicans try to accelerate the process on some of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Senators failed to forge a time agreement to expedite the confirmation of CIA Director nominee John Ratcliffe.

SEN. THUNE SUGGESTS STAYING THROUGH WEEKEND TO CONFIRM TRUMP PICKS AFTER DEMS DELAY VOTES: ‘SHOULDN’T BE HARD’

So, here are some Senate vocabulary terms for you.

Cloture, filibuster and ripen.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., filed “cloture” Tuesday to break filibusters on three nominees, starting with Ratcliffe. “Invoking cloture” is the parliamentary means to break a filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., filed “cloture” Tuesday to break filibusters on three Trump nominees – starting with former DNI John Ratcliffe. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A filibuster is in the eyes of the beholder. A filibuster could be a way to hold something up via a lengthy speech. It could be a way to just object and sidetrack the Senate’s course. Or, it could be implied that senators who plan to deploy either option. Thus, the Senate Majority Leader gets the joke. He knows he must “file cloture” to terminate the “filibuster.”

Democrats appear dug in on Ratcliffe. So Thune took the procedural step of filing cloture petitions to overcome a filibuster on the the Ratcliffe nomination, but also for Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary nominee Kristi Noem.

By rule, once cloture is filed, it must “ripen” for a day before the Senate may consider it. Thune filed cloture on Ratcliffe Tuesday. Therefore Wednesday serves as the intervening day. The Senate could vote to break the filibuster one hour after the Senate meets on Thursday at 10 am et. By rule, the cloture vote can begin at 11 am et. That will only need 51 yeas to break the filibuster.

SECOND ACTS: PRESIDENT TRUMP MAKES HISTORIC COMEBACK

CIA Director is not recognized as a full-level cabinet position. So the “post cloture” time is limited to only two hours – not the full 30 hours of debate allowed for all cabinet level slots.

Thus, if the Senate breaks the filibuster on Thursday, a vote to confirm Ratcliffe as CIA Director could come just two hours later. Confirmation only needs 51 votes.

Next in the queue is the Hegseth nomination. And the process starts all over again.

Pete Hegseth, the president’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, may require a tiebreaking vote by Vice President JD Vance in order to be confirmed. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Fox has learned that unless there is a time agreement to accelerate debate on nominees, it is possible that the confirmation vote on Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth could come late Friday night or in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

So let’s say the Senate clears the filibuster on Ratcliffe by late morning. It debates his nomination for a couple of hours. That means the Senate could vote by 3 or 4 p.m. ET to confirm Ratcliffe.

Once Ratcliffe is confirmed, Hegseth is next. The Senate could then vote to break the filibuster on Hegseth on Thursday afternoon. If the Senate breaks the filibuster, that would then trigger up to 30 hours of debate. If all time is used, final confirmation on Hegseth could come late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

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Regardless, this is where things get interesting:

Fox is told it’s possible there could be a tie on the confirmation vote for Hegseth. It’s about the math. Republicans have 53 members. Fox is told to keep an eye on Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. All have played their cards close to the vest as to their opinions on Hegseth. If they vote nay, Vice President Vance could need to come to the Capitol to break the tie and confirm Hegseth as Defense Secretary.

No vice president had ever broken a tie to confirm a cabinet secretary until former Vice President Mike Pence did so to confirm Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary on February 7, 2017. Pence also broke ties to confirm former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., as ambassador for religious freedom in 2018. He also broke a tie to confirm current Budget Director nominee Russ Vought as Deputy Budget Director in 2018.

Next in line after Hegseth comes a procedural vote on Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., Trump’s pick for Secretary of Homeland Security. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Once the Senate dispenses with the Hegseth nomination, it’s on to a procedural vote for Noem. The Senate would need to break a filibuster on Noem’s nomination. If that vote comes late Friday/early Saturday, the Senate could vote to confirm Noem midday Sunday if they burn all time. If the vote to break the filibuster on Noem comes at a “normal” hour Saturday (say 10 or 11 am et), the Senate doesn’t vote to confirm Noem until Sunday night or Monday if all time is required.

Thune also filed cloture on the nomination of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent late Thursday. So that’s up once Noem is confirmed. If all time is used, Bessent isn’t confirmed until early next week.

And so it goes.

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“Do you all have your sleeping bags and cots?” asked Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

Everyone is settling in for a slog.

“Right now it appears there’s every indication that votes will be taking place through Saturday. We’ll see if that goes into Sunday or Monday without any days in between. But right now, I’m planning on being there for the weekend for votes,” said Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.

These confirmations are Thune’s “first rodeo” as majority leader – and his first real opportunity to go to bat on behalf of his party’s interests. (Getty Images)

“I’m happy to be here all weekend, if that’s what it takes,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo.

That said, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., cautioned that things sometimes accelerate in the Senate. Especially when there’s chatter of late-night votes and weekend sessions.

“I think I’ve seen this game before,” said Durbin Tuesday. “I think it ends with an accommodation and a bipartisan agreement. So I wouldn’t jump too quickly now to reach a conclusion.”

DEM WHO CALLED TRUMP ‘EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY’ NOW BLOCKING HIS NOMINEES

That said, there are two factors afoot:

Democrats want to make a point about their reservations Trump nominees – especially those with whom they vehemently disagree or believe are unqualified. So politically, it’s important that they go to the mat and show their base they’re standing up to the President and his cabinet.

By the same token, this is Thune’s first rodeo as Majority Leader. He needs to establish his bona fides as Leader. Politically, Thune must demonstrate he’s fighting for Mr. Trump and his nominees – and willing to keep the Senate in session around the clock. In other words, there’s a new sheriff in town.

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So, unless something changes, everyone is dialed in for some lengthy weekend and even late-night sessions. It’s likely the Senate will confirm President Trump’s nominees.

But it might just take a while.

Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.

January 22, 2025