Chuck Schumer Will Stop Blocking Confirmations of Trump Nominees — For a Price
“This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted. It is political extortion, by any other name.”
As I reported earlier this week, Senate Democrats have been obstructing Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) efforts to confirm President Donald Trump’s civilian nominees. During a Monday radio interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, Thune described the situation as “unprecedented.”
He told Kilmeade:
This is the first president in history who has never had, at this point in his presidency, a civilian nominee approved either by unanimous consent or voice vote in the Senate, which is a way of expediting nominees that you know are broadly supported. So, they [Democrats] are delaying, obstructing, blocking, at every point in the process. So I totally appreciate the President’s frustration with what’s happening on the nominee front.
Now, on the eve of an extended recess, tensions are reaching a fever pitch. Thune would like to get dozens of nominees confirmed by the end of the day. If this doesn’t happen, he warned they are moving toward recess appointments or a rules change, according to Politico.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took to the floor on Saturday to defend the Democrats’ obstruction. He said that “historically bad nominees deserve historic levels of scrutiny.”
He continued, “I saw the Majority Leader bring out a chart again today, comparing the situation right now to past nominees from past administrations. What he fails to mention is that we have never seen nominees as flawed, as compromised, as unqualified as we have right now.”
Politico reported that staff for Thune and Schumer have been in contact this week. According to a source who spoke to Politico on the condition of anonymity, Schumer made an offer to Thune on Friday night—one that, to me, sounds a lot like extortion.
That offer would trade a small tranche of nominations now for the administration unfreezing certain funding. Democrats are then offering to do another tranche later this year, but the deal would be off if the administration transmits another request to the Senate to claw back more spending. That understanding would need to be formally locked in on the Senate floor, which would also require it to be blessed by all senators.
GOP senators have warned that they can’t commit to not doing additional rescission packages, which only require a simple majority to get through both the House and Senate. And they said on Saturday that they would want a deal to do another tranche of nominees as soon as the Senate returns in September.
Schumer and Thune also exchanged another round of counteroffers late Saturday afternoon.
Trump was outraged by Schumer’s proposal and took to Truth Social to let his feelings be known:
Senator Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is demanding over One Billion Dollars in order to approve a small number of our highly qualified nominees, who should right now be helping to run our Country. This demand is egregious and unprecedented, and would be embarrassing to the Republican Party if it were accepted. It is political extortion, by any other name. Tell Schumer, who is under tremendous political pressure from within his own party, the Radical Left Lunatics, to GO TO HELL! Do not accept the offer, go home and explain to your constituents what bad people the Democrats are, and what a great job the Republicans are doing, and have done, for our Country. Have a great RECESS and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!
ATTENTION @SenSchumer pic.twitter.com/betZLtqp6v
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 2, 2025
Given Trump’s strong opposition to the offer, it’s unlikely that Republican senators will agree to it. I certainly hope they won’t—and somehow, I don’t think I’m alone.
If Senate Republicans agree to this crap, just cancel the party. https://t.co/mWLVu9odIv pic.twitter.com/t9IO4L7scG
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 2, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Sounds like an illegal bribe.
Quid Pro Quo, an impeachable offence by Schumer’s rules.
It only takes a majority vote to say no pro forma sessions during the recess, then Trump can make recess appointments. And once the senate is formally out of session with no pro forma sessions allowed the only 2 people who can call it into session are John Thune and the President and I think the President has to call an emergency session to do it. They want to play dirty and try to get something out of letting Trump nominees through then play dirty back and don’t let them vote on any of them.
The only downside to this is that the recess appointment would only be good through the legislative session. There are (usually) two legislative sessions for each ‘Congress.’ Since we’re late into the year, I think (but am not positive), a recess appointment now, likely survives all of next year, even though that would technically be a different legislative session. But, in January of 2027, anyone appointed by recess appointment would see their appointment expire. I think for some critical positions, the juice is probably worth the squeeze. But, it may not necessarily be the right choice for all the vacancies.
That is still better than not getting them confirmed at all.
A recess appointment lasts until the end of the next session. So the rest of the 2025 session and all of the 2026 session. It would expire on Jan-2-2027.
Would there be the numbers in the senate to support a motion to adjourn for long enough to create a recess? And would there be the numbers in the house to give the senate permission to do that?
We should find out
This is where the power of the respective house leaders comes in. The Speaker and the Senate Leader need to say, ‘If there isn’t a concurrent adjournment resolution, then no one goes home.’
Remember when the Dems said, “Bless and pardon these illegal aliens now for tax cuts to be named later” and Ronnie bit on it?
I remember…
Yup. Now it’s SOP that whenever Democrats plead, “I will gladly pay you Thursday for a hamburger today,” you run, don’t walk, to the exits.
I can’t let that slip past. It’s Tuesday!
I’m either memory-impaired or culturally deficient.
With a certain class of people, it always gets down to money, doesn’t it?
/I meant politicians; who did you think I meant?!?
Senator Thune let this tomfoolery go on too long. He should tell Chuckie that were here until we get this list of nominees done or it will be an endless summer of debates.
If that fails, go nuclear.
Just go nuclear.
Also start cutting money from NY and from Chucky’s favorite programs.
Better yet run the Senate 24/7. Coordinate the committee meetings and keep the chamber in operation, use quorum calls to force attendance. If the geriatric d/prog can’t keep up that’s on them, though to be fair there’s more than a few GoP Senators who won’t see 70 again.
Then blow the whole thing up on recess. That’s the primary goal …to give the d/prog that issue in the midterms ‘oh the GoP used undemocratic recess appointments how evil they are’. That’s all the d/prog have …name calling everyone/everything a nazi …including Sydney Sweeney’s T&A.
I’d campaign on the sen. dem leaders offering Agee to go through for $1,000,000,000. It may not be cut and dry but if Rs go weak on this, they don’t deserve to be there. Look what Trump has accomplished by standing firm! Same. Here.
Since you know how Ds will twist anything, put your act together now and push back. As lol Ts in Congress
Yes, have a nice RECESS!
This whole episode further exacerbates my contempt for REPUBLICANS because we now find out that ‘the minority’ can in fact do a whole bunch of things to hamstring an opposition president. This was, apparently, completely unknown to the ‘master’ of the Senate parliamentary tricks, Mitch McConnell for the last 20-years. What makes me even more mad is when the shoe is back on the other foot sometime in the future, the GOP will immediately revert to form and claim, ‘there’s nothing we can do because we’re in the minority.’
But doing nothing gives them more time for fundraising appeals….’send us more $ to help the DC power brokers get more handpicked establishment candidates elected so the establishment GoP can squander the majority the next time we get one’.
Sorry GOP, not falling for that again.
The Republicans are controlled opposition. It’s slowly changing, but the fact remains the same.
Chuck U Shumer can go to HELL!! Thune needs to put the Senate in recess and let President Trump make recess appointments.
Why do we care.
Put them in ACTUAL recess, Thune, you unbelievable RINO hack, and just let him recess appoint.
Why are we ‘negotiating’ with a minority party.
Muh normz. That’s why they’re “negotiating”.
Not a down vote- missed the up vote. Sorry.
Thune is just continuing the failure theater mastered by his daddy, Bitch McConnell. He has options, but doesn’t want to use them.
“Aww shucks, guys. The communists outclassed us again while they’re not in power, but we’ll totally get em next time! Vote for me.”
Isn’t this basically the same tactic as Hamas is using?
Seems like Democrat=Hamas=Nazi!
No, it’s not like Hamas, because it’s operating within the rules. It’s using the rules themselves to hold the senate hostage, just like the filibuster. But unlike the filibuster it hasn’t got two centuries of tradition legitimizing it. The senate hasn’t had a chance to fix the rules and deliberately declined to do so. If Thune lets Schumer get away with it then it will soon become legitimate.
“we have never seen nominees as flawed, as compromised, as unqualified as we have right now.”
Oh, puh-leeze. What bullshit.
KBJ. Mayorkas. Garland. Buttigieg. Raimondo. Kamala Frickin Harris.
The senate is no stranger to extortion.
“Filibuster” means an act of piracy. That’s what the word means. There is an actual federal law banning filibustering, the Anti-Filibuster Act. It doesn’t refer to senators but to actual pirates. It bans raising a private army to invade another country.
The practice of a senator speaking forever in order to prevent the majority from passing a motion, or to extort some concession from the majority, is called a “filibuster” because it holds the senate hostage.
A revision of the senate rules accidentally created a loophole, and some time later a senator discovered it and used it, and it became something senators did. It was regarded as illegitimate and piratical, and that’s how it got its name. It only came to be seen as respectable and legitimate over a long time in which the senate had plenty of opportunity to close the loophole but instead chose to keep it open.
If Schumer gets away with this then this tactic too will start to be accepted as a legitimate way for a minority to extract concessions from the majority, so it will just be another form of filibuster. Thune shouldn’t allow that to happen, if only for the sake of the senate’s future.
0% surprised.
Democrats should be sitting quietly, whimpering in fear of the next revelation about the utter filth that’s been running their party. That they are not, shows a complete failure on the part of republicans who should be grinding them into the dirt.
No, democrats will only get louder from here as their corruption is exposed more and more because that’s all they can hope to do. All they have is distraction and nothing else.
I see Thune has ruled out recess appointments. The GOPe refuses to get that it is the past, not the future of the Republican Party 🤬🙄
Schumer has always been a punk.
You can’t and should not trust him on this because Schumer will always be a punk.
Chucky is a loathsome character
It’s an example of RICO.
Republicans Inevitably Chicken Out.
People here are forgetting one very important point about recess appointments: The last time the Supreme Court considered them, in Canning the four conservative justices said that recess appointments can only be made in between sessions, not during a break within a session no matter how long it is, and also that they can only fill vacancies that happened during the recess.
At that time they were outvoted by the four liberals plus Kennedy, who said an intrasession recess of sufficient length would do (they didn’t say how long that had to be, but that it was at any rate no less than 10 days), and that any vacancy could be filled that way.
Now Scalia, who wrote that concurrence, is gone, but the other three remain, and have been joined by three more conservatives. If Trump were to make a recess appointment the Dems would immediately run to the Supreme Court, knowing that the odds are good that at least two of the three new conservatives agree with Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts.
In addition, while Kagan would probably stick to her guns and vote to uphold the appointment, Sotomayor would likely reverse herself and vote with the conservatives because Trump, and Jackson would do the same without even having to reverse herself. So the Dems wouldn’t even need two of the three new conservatives to agree with the old ones; they could win with just one of the new three, plus one liberal, or even none of the new conservatives, plus two liberals.
how could chukie resist???
he just won concessions from the GOP without having to give a single vote towards the BidBuBill
gop: ok ..if you are able to work then you cant collect medicare
lefty: you better you not do that!!
gop: ok ..lets trick our constituents……..AGAIN……
As MA that liberal sink hole PROVED YET AGAIN
when the fed money dries up
THEY DO IN FACT RAISE MONEY FOR THEIR SCHEMES etc
stop giving in to the very people who want us destroyed
Fun Fact: The GOP doesn’t need to make any deals. End debate and cloture.
Interesting claim. Please walk us through the process of how that would occur to get to a place where a simple up/down vote of nominees occurs over the hyperventilating obstructionism of the d/prog.
Senator Markwayne Mullin released a video last evening explaining exactly what is going on in the Senate with President Trump’s nominees, how involved Trump has been in trying to get them through, and how Sen Thune and the Republicans are about to throttle Democrats with a rule change.
Watch below:
https://rumble.com/v6x2ycq-senator-markwayne-mullin-explains-whats-going-on-the-senate-with-trump-nomi.html
Bingo exactly. Putting the Senate into recess and using the recess appointment power is only a short-term solution. The Dems are not negotiating in good faith. They wanted a billion dollar bribe for their pet programs in exchange for *maybe* letting these nominees through like every other President has gotten theirs through (when they would actually go back on their word like they have many other times)
The Senate is about to eliminate the filibuster provision for Presidential nominees, and the Dems have nobody to blame but themselves. (Well, they’re going to go into frothing screeching fits trying to blame everybody else, but….)
The filibuster on nominations already disappeared, thanks to Harry Reid. They’re using other rules to delay.
If Rs “guts it and go” this could be the Senate that actually saves the institution. THAT would be very good for the country. We need to clean up all our government institutions.