Senate Republicans are still trying to hash out a deal with their Democratic counterparts to push through a package of President Donald Trump’s nominees as their scheduled departure from Washington has come and gone.
Republicans are under pressure from the White House, and their own members, to find a path forward, but Senate Democrats have largely dug their heels into the dirt in opposition in a bid to slow down the confirmation process. Lawmakers are still in town hammering toward a deal, while growing frustrations and weariness simmer in the upper chamber.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., appeared more upbeat about the state of affairs, despite rumblings that negotiations were faltering.
‘Democrats aren’t negotiating with us, we’re negotiating among ourselves,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘I think we found, I think we may have found a landing spot.’
Underscoring negotiations with Senate Democrats are threats of rule changes to the confirmation process, which could speed things up but drive a partisan wedge even deeper between the aisles.
Trump had initially called on Senate Republicans to consider canceling their August recess to ram through as many of his nominees as possible. But late Thursday night, he took a more stern tone.
‘The Senate must stay in Session, taking no recess, until the entire Executive Calendar is CLEAR!!! We have to save our Country from the Lunatic Left,’ Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social. ‘Republicans, for the health and safety of the USA, DO YOUR JOB, and confirm All Nominees. They should NOT BE FORCED TO WAIT. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been locked in negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., throughout the week to hammer out a deal that would allow lawmakers to vote on a tranche of nominees quickly.
He told reporters Friday evening that he didn’t have a ‘report that adds any certainty to the question of schedule at the moment.’
‘It’s still in flux,’ he said.
Senate Republicans have moved at a rapid pace to add more and more nominees to the calendar, and so far have placed nearly 160 onto the schedule. Should a deal not be reached, and the GOP adheres to Trump’s demands, leaving Washington to return to their home states until early September may be out of the question.
While most Republicans are on board with trying to ram through Trump’s picks, the desire to leave Capitol Hill after a blistering seven-month stretch — where lawmakers have already confirmed over 120 of the president’s nominees — is palpable.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said that the idea that lawmakers would leave town in the next few days ‘seems to have disappeared.’
‘Grumpiness is here already, as you can hear from my tone, but we’re still here. We know the factor of weariness and other commitments outside of Washington, D.C., they work, but there is still a whole set of … nominations that need to be completed,’ he said.
A bright spot for Republicans is that the resistance to advancing nominees and confirming them is not across the board among Senate Democrats.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told Fox News Digital that he has plans for recess, but he’s ready to cancel those if need be.
‘My hope is that we’ll move a number of nominees through and get out fairly soon,’ he said. ‘But I’m not the one doing the negotiating.’